The Calm
by SionnachOghma
Summary: Part 1 of 2. A bomb attack on Terminal City raises tensions. Logan uses Sketchy as bait for the Familiars by giving him the story of a lifetime. Lydecker returns, apparently to aid Max, but taking orders from an unknown source.
1. Prologue

**NOTE: ****The first three paragraphs of this Prologue - Italicised - are taken from Skin Game, by Max Allan Collins, after which this story takes place. **

**In Skin Game, White tracked down a mentally unstable Manticore escapee named Kelpy, with chameleon-like abilities (he could make himself look like somebody else, or render himself invisible to human eyes). Rather than capture or kill Kelpy, White instead replaced his Tryptophan supplier, providing him with tainted drugs that drove him over the edge, resulting in several murders. When rumours began to spread of a Transgenic serial killer, Max began working with Ramon Clemente to get to the truth.**

**Fixating on Max, Kelpy tried to murder Logan and take his place. When a fight broke out, the virus in Max's blood infected Kelpy when he took Logan's form. Before dying, Kelpy's confession, along with information supplied by Otto Gottlieb, who had been secretly investigating his boss, was enough to publicly expose White's crimes.**

**Also in Skin Game, Logan, who had been having trouble securing the Informant Net to avoid his broadcasts being traced, mentioned that he may call upon Sketchy to bring information to **_**New World Weekly**_** as an alternative means of getting the word out.**

**The Seattle PD Officer speaking in the excerpt is Ramon Clemente (Freak Nation).**

* * *

"_As the Seattle police officer assigned the so-called siege at Terminal City, I make this public plea to the Army: I urge you to reconsider your plans to invade Terminal City. These people – some call them freaks – have done nothing except defend themselves against false accusations, and yet…even when overwhelmed by problems of their own…still managed to help the police capture a serial killer. In addition, they have helped identify and expose the person manipulating the confessed killer, in an effort to stereotype transgenics as monsters, in a crass and heartless exploitation of the media and the public."_

_What the fuck office was that detective running for, all of a sudden? God, how White hated that pompous petty nonentity. He picked up the remote and fired it at the picture. A minute later he was riding away from the suburban house, leaving the lie of that life behind as quickly as possible, and heading into a precarious future._

_On televisions across the city the Streaming Freedom Video logo returned and that familiar, strangely soothing voice said, "One man's hatred, one man's fear of things different…sometimes that's all that's need to tip the scales of justice, until they are criminally off-kilter. We hope that those who make decisions are listening. We hope that – unlike Ames White – they will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of those who are different. There is time to stop this madness, this hatred. This has been a Streaming Freedom Video."_

The riots continued below, The National Guard still pushing back the mob of assorted troublemakers, though now seeming somewhat dispirited. Sector Seven, Terminal City, was the focus point of every grievance the people of Seattle had, but that broadcast could change everything. White was now a marked man for both sides, and better for him if he was caught by his own. The kids were doing a good job of proving they could be as human as everyone else, but if they laid their hands on Ames White they'd redefine pain.

Watching the scene from above, the television in the background now having switched back to the news, Lydecker wondered where all this was going. He'd sat with his eyes glued to the screen, and knew they'd left something out. There was something else Max had wanted to say, but held back on. When Kelpy had been telling his story about White, Max's game face had faltered, betraying her pain. She was still blaming herself for everything that went wrong around her.

When he'd been run off the road by White's goons, Colonel Donald Lydecker's training had gone right out the window, and he had survived instead using a trick he'd seen on some television show years ago. Waiting for his attackers to leave once they were certain he was dead, he'd survived by inhaling the air from his tyres. After leaving the water, he'd headed for Terminal City, which he knew was quickly becoming home to many of Manticore's less sociable and far less attractive residents. He'd watched and waited, the drama unfolding before him, waiting for the right moment to show himself. There were some people he'd contacted, though anonymously. No names, and nobody had seen his face. He had eventually returned to the Kiloma burial site that had nearly gotten him killed in the first place, and although it was now unguarded, everything was still there, and a little research had uncovered more sites bearing the Manticore symbol all over the world, the oldest dating back to 5,000B.C.

The past few weeks had been very interesting. A week after the initial exposure, when a worker transgenic known as Mule had been the subject of a police shooting at a Sector Checkpoint, Joshua's kidnapping of a girl and her eventual death had been enough to ensure that everyone in Seattle was in support of annihilating the 'transgenic threat.' However, unlike most at Manticore, Lydecker had known about Joshua living in the basement, had known him since Sandeman's time, and knew him to be quite docile, though the canine man-child had never liked him. Pretty much anyone else who had known Sandeman was dead now, many having suffered various 'accidents' like the one that had befallen Lydecker. There was nobody who could have vouched for Joshua's childish, friendly nature, even had they wanted to.

The girl turning up dead had to be White's doing. He'd done what Lydecker himself would have done in that same situation.

_No, not anymore!_ _That's not me!_

_**It isn't? What about Adriana Vertes? Or Tinga's son?**_

_It's over! _

_**Anything to get the job done, Deck.**_

Trying to distance himself from the acts he'd committed while attempting to capture the X5 escapees wasn't easy. There was a part of him that just wouldn't shut up, wouldn't let him forget. He wanted to go back to the man he'd been before Manticore, before alcoholism. He wanted to protect his family, his kids, like he should have protected Rachel. Not that they really needed protecting, but he had to redeem himself somehow.

The ringing of the phone in his jacket pocket put pause to the debate in his mind. The cell was scrambled, virtually untraceable, and nobody had the number. He didn't know it himself. Slowly, cautiously, he reached into his pocket and took out the still ringing phone.

"This is Lydecker." Whoever was calling obviously knew this much already, so there was no point in denial. "Who am I talking to?"

And Donald Lydecker, the king of composure, stared at the small, dirty mirror on the east wall, and watched the colour drain from his face. "How did you find me?" _And why are you calling me, of all people? _"Yeah, I saw it. Max has been very busy lately. Rallying a transgenic army, tearing up White's cover." Trying to recover from the shock of it all, Lydecker launched into his own questions. "Perhaps you can help me with something. You're obviously calling me because _you_ need some kind of help, so let's set the price. I want answers. I think you can provide them."

The negotiation was brief, and though he got no answers from this conversation, the new questions in he'd formed in his mind were interesting enough. That settled it. The answers were coming. Time to visit the kids.

* * *

_X5-599, I've got a heart for you. _

Leaping up with a start, soaked in sweat, the echoing explosion of gunfire still ringing through his head, Adam Thomson ducked into a corner of the small room, cowering, frantically checking his surroundings, primed to pounce on unseen enemies wherever they might appear. His breathing slowed as the terror of the dream – _**dream?**_– faded, and recognition sank in. The ranch; Buddy's ranch, which he had come to some months ago, after the apparent accident driving one of Buddy's trucks into Seattle. When he'd woken up in the hospital Buddy had introduced himself – for the first time, Adam – _**Zack**_ – knew now. When he'd arrived at the ranch, everyone had greeted him like an old friend, and at first things had been great; quiet, peaceful, normal, everything he'd ever wanted from life. He'd also fallen for Sara; a beautiful olive-skinned girl who worked with him on the ranch. It all felt right. But none of it was.

This wasn't the first time he'd been frightened out of his sleep by the horrifying dream, or others like it. The dreams had started two months ago, when a hoverdrone had captured footage of Sector cops fighting a Nomlie at a checkpoint. The news had played the footage over and over again, zooming in on the beasts' barcode every time. Just like his own barcode, the one everyone on the ranch pretended not to notice. He hadn't slept soundly since that day, and things had gotten steadily worse. Not long after the first fight at the checkpoint, another Nomlie had been found, and this one had kidnapped a blind girl and taken her into sewers. The chase had ended with the discovery of the girl's mauled and mangled body, and the revelation of X-series transgenics, who looked just like everyone else. Though none of them spoke of it, Adam knew that everyone on the ranch knew what he was. It made no sense. Out there, anyone even suspected of being a transgenic was as good as dead, but here, where everyone seemed to know the truth better than he did, they all still treated him like a friend. Out there, the only support for transgenics was coming from Eyes Only – _**traitor! **_But even he had disappeared, reappearing only days ago with another shocking revelation – Max.

The government agent in charge of capturing Manticore escapees had been trying instead to manipulate them for his own ends, to annihilate them whatever the cost, even orchestrating a series of gruesome murders by drugging an already disturbed Nomlie and setting him on innocent people. That hadn't shocked him so much. That kind of thing could be expected from some people. _**People like Lydecker**_. But who was Lydecker? What had shocked him was Max. He'd seen her before. She'd been in the hospital when Buddy had taken him... _home. **Why can't this be my home?**_ He'd spoken to her, thinking he knew her, but she'd claimed not to know him. She'd also been involved in the siege at Jam Pony a few weeks ago, hijacking a hoverdrone and riding it over the police and right through the window. That was when the worst of the nightmares had started. Every night since then he'd had the same nightmare, knowing how real it had been once. Running through a dense forest, watching over his shoulders for the pursuers ever he couldn't see in his wake. But he could hear them. A gun fired from the shadows, the pain of white-hot metal in his shoulder he tried to ignore as he fell. The gun sounding again, further away. _Flash._

Strapped to a hospital gurney, doctors treating his shoulder. Through the doors to an operating room, where Max lay unconscious, bleeding from a shot through the heart. _Flash._

"Her heart has been shredded." "Then she needs a heart!" "It wouldn't help. She's an X5, she needs an X5 heart." _Flash._

"X5-599, I've got a heart for you."

Rising unsteadily to his feet, Adam – _**Zack!**_– walked over to the bed and stared at the girl lying with her back to him, her sleep undisturbed by his sudden panicky awakening. She stirred gently, on the verge of waking. She'd liked him from the start, always making excuses for the two of them to be together with nobody else around. At first, he'd been cautious, as if something inside told him he shouldn't get involved, but something about her made him drop his guard, and he'd fallen in love with her. It was only now he realized why, and the shock at the thought almost made him cry aloud; she looked just like _her_.

His mind finally made up, he reached under the bed, and pulled out the bag he'd packed the night of the broadcast but had hoped he wouldn't need. Inside he had things he'd bought in the city over the past few weeks, after the Jam Pony siege. A few questions to people he'd spotted as easily as breathing had secured him a fake I.D and Sector Pass, and a USP .45 pistol. The gun lay disassembled in a small case, which he opened now. After piecing the weapon together, looking not at it but at Sara the whole time, he went to closet and got dressed quietly, and, making sure the safety was on, he tucked the gun into the back of his jeans, covering it with under his sweater, turtle-necked to cover his barcode. Back to the bag, he made sure the money was still there – not much remained after paying for the documents and gun, but it would be enough – and his keys. He stood over Sara for a few moments longer, wanting to wait until she was awake, wanting to say goodbye. Hoping she could talk him out of leaving. Instead, he leaned forward, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and whispered, "I'm sorry."

On his way to meet the guy he'd been buying the I.D from, he'd seen a run-down apartment building, which, in truth, looked no different from any of the rest, but he knew he'd been there before. On the fifth floor, he'd reached up behind a loose ceiling panel and pulled the keys down, knowing they were his. He had no idea when he'd been here before, but the apartment was in Sector Six, less than two miles from Terminal City. He'd had to kick out a couple of squatters, but knew from the scare he'd given them that they wouldn't be back, and that the apartment lay empty. The only other items were an untraceable cell – the I.D guy had referred him to a friend for that – and a bottle of Tryptophan, for the occasional seizures Buddy said were a result of the head-injuries he'd suffered in the truck crash. Sure he had everything, he closed the bag, picked up his boots and snuck outside. Putting his boots on and lacing them up, he went outside and crossed the yard.

Stepping so lightly the dirt under his feet didn't even crunch, he opened the door of his truck- at least, and Buddy had said it was his – climbed in and froze. He still wasn't sure he wanted to do this. He had a great life here, a quiet, happy, normal life. _What's normal anyway? _The others in Terminal City were getting along fine without him, and did he really want to know about his past? But Max - _I died for you! _- and Eyes Only - _**Agitator, Turncoat, Murderer **_– both had a hand in this life, leaving him here for whatever reason.

_Promise me you'll fight them, Maxie_.

He couldn't let her fight that fight alone, whatever had happened in the past.

* * *

The old house had probably once been quite attractive; back when it had a decent coat of paint and its' large garden had been well tended. Now, despite its' being kept relatively tidy by its' previous owner, it still appeared a dilapidated shell on the outside; not uncommon in post-Pulse Seattle, but still a sad sight, if people noticed it, which few did. Even the young man approaching the house barely registered its' condition. He only saw that the blinds were up.

Ever since leaving Terminal City, Calvin 'Sketchy' Theodore had passed by the old house every day on his Jam Pony rounds to see if any messages had been left by Logan. Every day until today, the blinds had been down, indicating no news. Now he left his bike by the porch and went inside, into the living room. There he opened the top centre drawer and took out the large envelope inside. Almost gnashing his teeth with the thought that he may finally have something important to do, he emptied the contents of the envelope onto the desk and started going through it.

First was a note to him from Logan telling him to bring the contents of the envelope directly to his editor, and that more would soon follow. Intrigued, Sketchy picked up the first items on the desk in front of him; three photographs of what looked like a tomb or a burial ground. The bones of a woman and two children with their skulls caved in, and a drawing on a wall, of what seemed to be a lion. Next was a sheet of paper covered in Logan's handwriting. Sketchy started to read and was instantly lost for words. '…legends of ancient societies…Chile, Mesopotamia…child was described as horribly deformed…second child…the third child was born, and this child they took with them, after killing the mother…symbol and identical story connected to many such societies across time and distance ruling out all possible relation…evidence that such societies exist even today…'

Taking a second to try and get the information clear in his head, Sketchy picked up the last file, a bunch of pictures and printouts. The pictures were of a bunch of kids in camouflage carrying M4s, and scribbled notes clipped to the photos said they were file photos stolen from a Manticore computer, of a group of transgenics who escaped eleven years before Manticore burned. On every page of the printouts…Sketchy picked up the first photos he'd looked and placed the one of the creature painted on the wall beside the pages he was reading.

It was the same symbol.

A couple of minutes later, when Sketchy left the old house practically skipping with excitement, he never noticed the woman watching him from across the street. If he had seen her, he might have been pretty scared of her; she was pretty small, but one look at her was enough to say she wasn't to be messed with. Blonde hair, ice blue eyes and a sweet, innocent face made her very pretty, but those same eyes betrayed the face, giving the girl a predatory demeanour.

Before starting up her bike to follow, she made a quick call on her cell.

'He just left the house.'

'Don't let him out of your sight,' came the reply.


	2. Chapter One

Red, white and black, with a soaring dove emblazoned across it's centre, the Freak Nation flag of the Transgenics soared high above Terminal City, a strong wind whipping at it, holding it out for all to see, even those who didn't want to look at it. Right now even Max didn't want to look at it. She had been as proud as any, even Joshua, the flags' creator, the night it was first raised, and most of the time she still was. But sometimes she hated the sight of it, wanted to burn it and run. Too often it was a bitter reminder of small victories at high costs.

The very night they had raised it had been a celebration of one of those small victories. An excursion into Seattle to meet two X-series Transgenics and bring them to Terminal City had gone horribly wrong, resulting in a siege at Jam Pony. Although the Transgenics had gotten through that crisis without it turning into a massacre - for which they surely would have been blamed - they had lost one of their own to one of White's federal goons in a sniper attack. That day had earned them their first ounce of respect among Ordinaries that day, sowed the first seeds of doubt in the monstrous reputation they'd been given up until that point. Even Normal had begun to entertain the idea that Transgenics were human after all, but Max would give it all back in a second for another chance to get Cece out alive.

Now their worst enemy - or at least, the worst to reveal himself so far, was on the run. Ames White's plans to turn the public view against Transgenics, his disgusting manipulation of Kelpy, and framing poor Joshua for Annie's murder, had all been revealed to the public at last. Stopping Kelpy had once again curried favour among Ordinaries, and further confusion had been caused by exposing White for the scumbag he was. But Joshua was still miserable having lost his first love, and Max couldn't help but feel a great pain over Kelpy's death, even though she never knew him, even though he had nearly killed Logan. He'd been a pitiable creature, and very little blame for what he had done could really lay with him. If anything, she blamed herself. The virus Manticore infected her with in an attempt to murder Logan had infected Kelpy when he morphed his genome to resemble Logan.

The public perception of Transgenics was apparently getting better and better, but Max wasn't so sure about that. The jeering crowds were getting larger every day, to the point where they could be sitting down reading poetry to each other and it would still sound like a full-scale riot. And the nights were no longer that little bit quieter. Chaos reigned 24/7 at the barriers around Terminal City. Fights had been breaking out over the past few days between the usual group of 'concerned citizens' and those who had begun advocating Transgenics' right to life. At one point the National Guard had almost been overrun by the warring factions. Six people had been killed, and a lot more injured. More deaths at the feet of Max and Manticore.

"You think it would count against us if we started beating the crap out of fence-jumpers? It might encourage them to stay away." Despite the bitter cold, all the worse given the fact that they were a month into the Spring, Alec didn't bother with a jacket, and seemed quite comfortable in no more than a thin long-sleeved t-shirt. Max remembered the night of the escape, falling through the ice, forced to remain hidden under the freezing water while guards patrolled the rushed around the spot she and Jondy had last been seen. Jondy had called out to her after she fell, and was about to come back for her, but Max had not answered, prompting her 'sister' to go on alone rather than risk re-capture by stopping to try and find her. Her X-5 genetic make-up had allowed her to walk away from that incident without even a chill, but lately Max felt cold all of the time, and knew it had nothing to do with the weather.

"How many so far?" In the weeks since the broadcast about White and Kelpy, a few people per week had begun climbing the tall chain-link fences surrounding Terminal City. They didn't seem to care at all about the countless lethal biological and even radiological toxins floating around the ruined remains of Sector Seven, which only Transgenic - and Familiars, Max reminded herself - were immune to, and although at first the National Guard had done a good job stopping most of them from reaching the top of the fences and getting in, that had changed lately.

In the beginning, those attempting to enter Terminal City had been just your average everyday nut jobs. Most seemed to think Transgenics the perfect weapon with which to combat a corrupt world order, but according to the news, there were some who actually believed Max and her kin were a gift from a higher power, sent to safely deliver them all from a coming apocalypse. Max's thoughts always strayed to the runes on her skin when she was reminded of that.

Lately the number of people trying to get in had increased, and everyone had started to worry a little when they realized that it was no longer just the crazies. The previous day a disturbance in the crowd had distracted the National Guard long enough for a man to get over the fence, and once over he had reached inside his jacket to remove a pipe bomb. Fortunately one Guardsmen had managed to notice this, and before Mole could blast the would-be bomber with his shotgun, had hit him with a rubber bullet in the shoulder. The bomb, instead of detonating the moment it fell from his hand, as such sensitive home-made crap has a tendency to do, had rolled harmlessly away.

Max had been equally pleased with the fact that Mole had been denied the opportunity to kill the attacker as she was that the attack itself had been a dismal failure. Despite the slowly shifting public perception, the Transgenics' rights of self-defence were unclear, only a slight improvement from non-existent, and a lot of public trust might have gone down the toilet had any of the news cameras captured Joe Nobody being blown away by the Lizard Man.

"Three so far, and it's not even noon yet. One made it over, but he was just another loony. Mole belted him in the face and left him close enough to the fence for the National Guard to come in and get him. It happened before I could stop him," he added in poorly-imitated innocence, seeing the annoyed look on her face. For a super-soldier, sometime spy and full-time philanderer, Alec was a lousy liar, almost completely unable to hide the childish grin that served him so well. "It's only a matter of time before one of them manages to do some damage," he continued, his voice more serious now. "We need to know how far we can go to defend ourselves from these psychos. No guarantee that takin' them alive will be an option next time there's a problem."

"Spoke to Clemente a little while ago. He said the mayor's making an announcement on the news in…about an hour," she told him, checking her watch. "Apparently he's giving the National Guard the O.K to use lethal force on anyone who gets inside."

"Well, that's great!" Alec snorted, echoing Max's own lack of faith in the idea. "So until they're over the fence, anything goes, and the weekend warriors will make a move once they're already on this side. Does he realize that if they're over the fence that probably means the Guard is looking in the wrong direction, too late to do a thing to help?" He paused a moment, uncomfortable, Max assumed, that he sounded as if he were blaming her. Lately Alec had become a lot more tactful in her presence. He made less jokes than usual, tried to keep her company whenever possible, and a couple of times Max had definitely felt his eyes on her. With any other guy, Max would have assumed a romantic interest, or, more accurately, a desire to get her into bed. With Alec, however, it felt as if she were on suicide watch. Joshua, too, had changed, frequently glancing in her direction and asking if she was okay. It certainly didn't help that she usually didn't hear the first time, drifting off as often as she had been.

"Baby-steps. We're lucky to be even _making_ baby-steps, instead of just filling holes in the ground. We just gotta be patient." That was what she kept telling everyone, including herself, but Max wondered if any of them really hated all this waiting around for change to come to them any more than she did. Although Max very rarely needed to sleep, lately she found herself dozing off for several hours every night, where once it had been more like an hour every three nights, if that. She didn't know whether it was the boredom or the tension that made her want to leave the world every night, but she thought that if she were to forego nightly rest she might feel much better. Max's dreams of late had been plagued with the dead, friends and people Max known closely enough to consider family.

Every night Brin's burnt corpse, still aflame from the charges Max and Zack had planted in Manticore's DNA lab while Max left Brin handcuffed to a pipe, grabbed Max from behind and smothered her in flames.

Every night Tinga dropped a naked Max into a massive vat of chemical-filled water, where she found herself suddenly strapped down with IV's in her arms and back and the tube down her throat choking her. Unable to scream for help, she tried and failed to reach out to Tinga, who looked on passively, dead eyes seeming to look right through her.

Every night Ben, with his broken body and Alec's face, lay in the woods in which she had abandoned his corpse for Lydecker to reclaim, screaming up at her that she had betrayed him, kept him from the Blue Lady and murdered him. Max stood frozen, unable to run, unable to look away or speak, to beg his forgiveness.

Biggs, barely recognisable from the brutal beating, hung upside down from a light pole over a bonfire, chuckling unconcernedly, wondering aloud what Lola would say if she could see him now.

Lydecker stood over her, his face a cruel sneering mask as she held Eva in her arms.

Kelpy/Logan, pale except for the ugly red marks on his face, gasped his last tortured breath.

Zack turned the gun not on himself but on her.

"Hey, you still here?" Jolted back to Terminal City by Alec's hand on her shoulder, Max felt exhausted all of a sudden exhausted again. Shrugging his hand away, she was about to ask if she could just be left alone for a while when Alec suddenly stiffened. "Here comes number two for the day."

She followed his gaze to where a grubby little man was dropping from the fence less than fifty feet away. Max focused her vision on his face as he turned towards them, and saw just another harmless nut, excitement slapped all over his filthy features. Alec seemed to have come to the same conclusion, and they slowly made their way towards him as he began rushing in their direction.

Mole's distressed cry was the first warning. Only now did Max and Alec realize how this man had gotten over the fence. A pair of Guardsmen were breaking up a small group who been fighting near their position, anxious to put a stop to it before a full-scale riot broke out. As the brawlers were pulled apart, the Guardsmen were taken aback by the smug expressions on their faces, which Max noticed too despite being so far away. The second warning was the smell of nitrate, as by now the man who had scrambled over the fence had come much closer in the brief time it had taken Max and Alec to realize there was a problem.

Before Max could react, her feet were kicked out from under her, and she found herself being tossed backwards. Before she had even hit the ground, Alec had drawn a highly polished M1911 from the waistband of his jeans. Max was vaguely aware of Mole swearing loudly from somewhere behind her, apparently unable to get a clear shot with Alec in the way.

Despite her previous concern at the thought of pissing off the few people who had come to appreciate that Transgenic's had a right to live almost as much as the rest of them, during the instant between the initial flare and the actual explosion, Max had time to wonder angrily why Alec had not aimed higher than chest level and scrambled the bomber's brains. By some inexplicable fluke, it appeared that the single bullet had passed straight through, it's course unaltered despite the presence of so much bone and muscle in the man's chest, and ignited the fertilizer bomb in his backpack.

Max was trying to scramble to her feet when it blew. Flung like a rag doll by the force of the explosion, Alec crashed into her. The wind knocked out of her, everything went briefly white as she felt her head pound against the concrete, and a wrenching sound followed briefly by a pop and the pain told her she'd dislocated her shoulder in the awkward impact.

Before the dull throbbing in her head became too much, her eyes darted around her for Alec, who had rolled past her after the collision. His eyes were closed, his handsome face covered in blood. Before she had a chance to notice whether or not he was breathing, Max lost the struggle to stay conscious, and a new tormentor joined the others in her dreams.


	3. Chapter Two

The offices of _New World Weekly_ were on the second floor of what had until a couple of years ago been a residential apartment building full of dozens of studios, each one completely indistinguishable from the next; uniformly square, identical utilitarian furniture, and the same institutional grey throughout. The buildings' previous owner had done quite well with short-term residents, mostly businessmen-and-women in Seattle on contracts spanning a few months who couldn't afford to stay in hotels for their stay and found the dull, filing-cabinet layout of the building slightly more appealing than the average roadside motel. When that owner had been indicted on multiple counts of fraud and racketeering connected to the remains of the old mob, this and two other similar buildings had been his only remaining assets once his bank accounts had frozen. Desperate need for both an excellent attorney and someone to keep him safe from his former associates had forced him to sell the property for bargain-basement prices, and Deborah Litvack had secured the second floor of this particular building, and like those who had taken up the other floors, had quickly worked to make it look like something other than a high-end prison.

Having begun her own career in journalism as a photographer thinking about no more than keeping a leaky roof above her head, Litvack had taken pity on Sketchy when he first arrived at New World Weekly looking for a job, and decided to give him a chance. After he'd emerged from the sewers one day raving about the amazing shots he had of government suits chasing a mutant, she'd come close the breaking his camera over his head when he revealed nothing more than a bunch of exposed film. His next excursion into Seattle's sewer system had been even more embarrassing; the day the Fisher girl was 'kidnapped' he'd crawled out of a manhole towards the end of the day with nothing but a pair of black eyes, having had the crap beaten out of him _twice_ by nobody he got a look at. She'd wanted to strangle him that day.

Now she thought she might have to kiss him.

"An Eyes Only informant gave you this?"

Sketchy nodded numbly, standing in front her desk - she had not asked him to sit down - trying not to look as nervous as he felt, and failing miserably. His excitement at the prospect of the story had ebbed slightly upon being told by his supervisor to bring it straight to Litvack, whom he knew was by no means fond of him and had been considering cutting the very thin thread connecting him to her magazine.

"Any of it true?"

"You'd have to ask my source," Sketchy told her, shrugging. "But even I dunno who he is," he added.

Litvack looked up at him and grinned cheekily. For a woman well into her forties, she did a great impression of a little girl sneaking her hand into the cookie jar. "Logan Cale?" she enquired innocently, as if plucking the name out of thin air.

Taking advantage of the silence as Sketchy just stood there with his jaw hanging loose, she opened the top drawer in her desk and pulled out a thin folder, which she opened on the first page. "Arrested in '15 for taking part in subversive, possibly terrorist-related activities, specifically writing and circulating articles which promoted a call to arms against the government. Known associates include Nathan Herrero, who was presumed dead until two years ago, then died for real.

"Herrero was arrested with him that day. Cale got out the same day, Herrero spent six months behind bars before his very clever lawyer could do anything for him. Must be great to come from a family like that," she mused. "_My_ family's always had a ton of cash, but we still never had that kind of influence. Arrested as a suspected terrorist then released the same day because his uncle asked nicely.

"According to police surveillance, Cale got smart and stopped with the articles around the time Herrero disappeared. Then a little while after that, Eyes Only shows up." She plucked two photos from the file. One was the Eyes Only logo; the other, an enlargement of what looked like a passport photo of Logan. "Pretty close, wouldn't you say?" Litvack was clearly enjoying this.

"Eyes Only rails against government corruption like nobody has for decades, and does some pretty good work dealing with less sophisticated scum, too. Then all of sudden a new subject starts dominating his airtime. Manticore. Before anyone else had even heard of them, Eyes Only was at war with them. Then when all the freaks got out, he was pretty much their only defender. And he disappeared the same night as Logan Cale. The great man cuts short one of his broadcasts, then twenty minutes later somebody kicks in Cale's door and turn his apartment into Baghdad. Neither of them are heard from again until the Jam Pony siege, when Logan Cale rushes in like a knight in shining armour to defend the transgenics. He hasn't been seen since they all got back into Terminal City that night, but now Eyes Only is back on the scene, and where did his comeback broadcast originate from? Terminal City."

Litvack picked up the photos, placed them back in the file and closed it. "I take it you've heard enough," she queried of the still-dumbstruck Sketchy. "I was going to run this story in a couple of weeks once I had the last few details worked out, but I think you might have brought me something a little more interesting. So here's the deal. One thing pretty much everybody knows about Eyes Only is that he's always been straight with people in his broadcasts. I can't think of a single thing he's ever said that can be called a lie in retrospect. He's got quite a lot of integrity for a guy who hides behind his computer."

She started flicking through the folder Sketchy had presented her with either ten minutes or half a lifetime ago. Sketchy wasn't quite sure. "I'm willing to take him on his word with all this stuff, bizarre as it seems. I thought he was nuts or lying or both when he started talking about Manticore. Even when _we_ were printing stuff about it at first I thought it was a load of crap. Who knew it would turn out to be the first true story we'd ever cover?

"So I'll leave _this _by the wayside for now. As long as Mr Cale is willing to be so nice to us, I can afford to extend him the courtesy of not blowing his whole life wide open." Her eyes narrowing slightly, she waited for Sketchy to find his voice again.

"Ummm… are you… blackmailing me?" he mumbled stupidly.

"No, jackass. I'm blackmailing _him_! I'm promoting you. You're gonna write this story. Since he's _your_ source, I figure I may as well give you something to do around here for a change."

His mind torn between delight at the prospect of writing an article, worry at the realization he'd barely written anything longer than his name since school, and horror over what might befall Logan, Sketchy's expression was among the oddest Litvack had ever seen. "W-well, I don't know if I'm up for that. I'm a photographer. I take pictures!"

"I've yet to see one. I'll pair you with a writer. He can help you out. This is a one-time offer. I'm happy to just take the information, but this could be good for you if you can pull your head out of your ass long enough to pick up a pen. Yes or no?"

"Yes," he breathed excitedly.

Grinning again, Litvack picked up her phone. "Ben, can you come in here for a minute?"

A few seconds later, a tall brown-haired man a dull grey suit entered. He completely ignored Sketchy's presence. "What do you need?" he asked.

"We got a new story. Big one. Bigger than Manticore if we can ever back it up. Theodore here brought us the info from an Eyes Only informant. He'll be writing it. He's going to need your help with it. He's never written before, but fair's fair, he did bring us the story in the first place." She turned back to Sketchy. "This is Ben Mitchell. He hasn't been with _us_ very long, but he's been writing for years. He won't let you screw up too badly."

"What's the story?" Mitchell enquired.

"A precursor to Manticore, apparently thousands of years old, starting with selective breeding programs among cultures the world over. We don't have all the information yet, but it seems to lead right up to the project in Wyoming, and some secret cult of psychotic snake-worshippers. I know how that sounds, but consider the source. According to Theodore's source, Eyes Only himself wanted us to have this, so we're not about to look a gift horse in the mouth."

"No, ma'am." Mitchell responded. He seemed to have trouble getting the words out. Acknowledging Sketchy for the first time, he briefly looked him over, then extended a hand, shaking the younger man's hand forcefully. "Looking forward to working with you.

"Me too." Sketchy forced a smile, feeling pretty unnerved at the sight of Mitchell, though not knowing why.

However portentous this meeting seemed to Sketchy, that was nothing to how Mitchell felt.

* * *

"What is that, haddock?" Logan pointed towards the small collection of quite skinny fish at the back of the stall.

"Cod," the man in the apron told him. "Last of it we'll be seeing for a while, too. Been declared endangered again. Most of the North Atlantic's off-limits at this point."

Logan wondered briefly if the stall owner really cared _why _the new restriction was being imposed, or was just annoyed that it would affect his supplies. The North Atlantic Ocean was one of the few places left on the whole planet where pollution levels were still low enough that the fish caught there could even be declared safe to eat.

"I'll take five pounds of it."

"Party?" the stall owner enquired.

Logan shrugged. "No, but like you said, who knows when we'll see any again?" As he handed over the money, a flash on the TV screen behind the vendor caught his attention. It was a feed from one of the countless news cameras around Terminal City, and the banner at the bottom of the screen read "Terminal City Bomb Attack."

"Hey, could you turn that up, please?" He asked as he pulled out his cell phone to dial Max's number.

"…ess than two minutes ago. At this point the only casualty we can confirm is the bomber himself, blown up by his own device. Two transgenics appear to have been caught in the blast, but their status remains unknown."

"Dammit!" Logan hung up and tried again. The only response he received was an automated message informing him that Max's phone was either switched off or outside of any area with coverage.

"It seems we have an angle from another camera just sent to us by one of our affiliates. As you can see from here, neither transgenic seems to be moving. One of those lifting the injured onto a stretcher is the same lizard-man who was involved in the Jam Pony siege just weeks ago."

Giving up on Max's cell, Logan dialled the phone in Dix's security station.

"Both injured parties seem to be in very bad shape. As you can see from here, the young man is covered head-to-toe in blood; though chances are most of that blood is the bombers'." The newscaster paused briefly, apparently receiving information through his earpiece. "This just in," he announced in a graver tone than before. "We have confirmed the identities of the victims of the attack, and their status." Logan leaned forward and turned the volume up further himself. The vendor made no objection, his own attention fixed upon the broadcast.

"The male victim has been identified by eye-witnesses as being an X-5 who was involved in the Jam Pony siege a few weeks ago. He was, in fact an employee of Jam Pony at the time, whose employee record bears the name Alec Cora. Also, we have confirmed this with our chopper which has just arrived, and, it seems from the word of one of the transgenics at the scene."

Logan, the ringing phone still sounding in his ear, paled and felt his legs buckle as the image switched from the newscaster to a birds-eye view of the scene.

First he saw Mole at the fence talking to a pair of Guardsmen, apparently unconcerned at the cameras gathered around listening to every word. The massive crowd gathered around were apparently so shocked at what they had just witnessed that nobody thought to so much as throw a bottle over the fence at him. Then Logan's eyes fell upon the pair of stretchers being carried away into Terminal City. Neither of those on the stretchers were moving. "The second victim," the newscaster continued, "is Max Guevara, the woman who has of late become the public face of the denizens of Terminal City. We have just been informed that neither victim survived the blast."


	4. Chapter Three

"An Eyes Only informant gave you this stuff?" The question was expressed with only a mild interest, as opposed to the extreme urgency Mitchell felt as he asked it.

Sketchy paused his typing for a brief second to take a sip of his coffee. Easily the biggest sign of a failing system, he thought, was how bad the coffee was in a city that had been famous for its Java pre-Pulse. "Yeah," he replied, sucking air slightly to soothe a scalded tongue. _At least it's hot, _he said to himself. _And you can still get good quality weed when caffeine isn't quite what the doc ordered._ "Hey, what's another word for 'diabolical'? Seems like kind of a dumb word to me."

"Try 'fiendish'."

Sketchy went back to the ancient notebook computer – New World Weekly kept a pile of old pre-Pulse computers lying around in case anybody needed them. All they were really good for at this point was typing. He keyed in 'fiendish', re-read the sentence, and then went back to 'diabolical' instead.

Ben continued with his questions. "How is it you know an Eyes-Only source well enough for him to feed you a story like _this_?" He indicated the folder he was flipping through.

Obviously not wanting yet another reporter learning that his source actually was Eyes Only himself, he answered carefully. "I don't. Not really. You know all about my friend Max, right?"

"As much as anyone." _And more,_ he didn't add. Despite all the freaks she skulked around Terminal City with, 452's was the most well known Transgenic face, shown in almost every news piece about the filthy little aberrations. She was also becoming something of an object of fear among Familiars. _No, _he revised privately. It wasn't fear. They feared nothing. But this girl was worthy of cautious attention, and maybe even a molecule of respect, despite what she was. _Immune. _"She worked with you at Jam Pony before the hostage crisis, right? Did you ever know? Before all that happened?"

"No," the skinny punk lied, blowing on his coffee this time before taking a sip. "Anyway, guy's a friend of hers. Leaves stuff for me to find so I can bring it to the magazine."

"Hmm." Mitchell still didn't seem all that interested in the story or his source, which baffled Sketchy somewhat. He seemed to just be trying to keep a little conversation going. Glancing quickly at the other man, he took in his dark, lifeless eyes, and almost thought that the other man was struggling just to stay awake. But his next question put Sketchy's guard up a little. "So you don't actually meet with him. Where does he leave stuff for you?"

_Maybe he **is** pretty interested,_ Sketchy considered. _Probably wants to pull the story out from under me and bring it somewhere else for the cash. Jerk! _All he said, however, was "I probably shouldn't say. If word got around, he could get into some pretty serious trouble if the wrong people heard…"

Ben just shrugged dismissively. "Don't worry about it." Finishing the last of his coffee, Ben stood up. "I gotta hit the bathroom." Walking away from the table, he thought about what he knew so far. Eyes Only had felt the need to expose Familiars to the world. It was, of course, Eyes Only himself. Logan Cale, whose apartment White's people had raided following the tracing of one of his hacks, had reappeared on the airwaves recently, obscured, as always by his universally recognised logo. _How much does he actually **know**? _Mitchell wondered worriedly._ Can he prove it? Maybe indicate individual Familiars? _It was possible, he supposed. They'd captured Ray White. If the boy had lived, a sample of his blood would have shown how different he was from ordinary humans, and from Transgenics. If not, then he hadn't truly been one of them, and only a few minor anomalies would have shown. _But still…_

Taking advantage of the first moment of relative privacy he'd had since the meeting with his editor, Sketchy grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and dialled the number for the security station in Terminal City. The call was answered at the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey, uh," Sketchy scrambled for the name to go with a slightly high-pitched voice. "Dix, right?"

"Yeah," came the response. "Is this Sketchy?"

"That's right. Listen, can I talk to Max?"

"Did Logan tell you?" Dix enquired a little angrily.

"No, I haven't spoken to him, but I need to. I don't have a number for him. Something goin' on?"

"It's all over the news. Suicide bomber hit us a little while ago. Max and Alec got hurt. Max isn't too bad, bit of a concussion and a dislocated shoulder, but Alec's really messed up.

"I spoke to Logan just a couple of minutes ago," he continued. "He's gonna send some doctor friend of his to see if he can help out. Most of have med training, but this might be a little beyond us, and our equipment's for shit. All junk we salvaged around here when we moved in.

"Mole told the National Guard they were both killed. He wanted the news cameras to hear it. The word's out that from now on we kill _anyone_ who jumps the fence, no questions asked. It might make things a little shaky with the politicians, but should keep the regular losers out. This way we know anyone who tries to get in doesn't care about livin' or dyin'."

"How bad is he?" Sketchy asked, concerned. Despite the frequent trouble Alec had gotten him into, from steelheads to hostage crises, he couldn't help but like the guy.

"The blast didn't really hit him. He shot the bomber, and the device went off early. He got rag-dolled by the force of the explosion. Broken collarbone; that'll heal pretty quickly with him, but he hasn't woken up yet. Most of us could walk off a knock to the head that'd leave an Ordinary comatose. There's no sign of him coming to, and we don't have any proper diagnostic equipment. 'Least none we can be sure won't blow up or cause him more harm than good," he groused. Dix, who had pieced together most of the equipment that kept Terminal City running from little more than scrap metal, probably considered it a personal failure that the medical equipment the Manticore refuges had salvaged had been beyond his expertise. "The doc might be able to sneak in a portable MRI and get it back before the hospital notices," he added hopefully.

"I hope he comes out of this," said Sketchy. "Is Max with you? I need to talk to her, get a message to Logan."

"Uh…" Dix hesitated uncomfortably. "I don't know if she can really talk right now. She's hovering over Alec, won't come away. She wouldn't even talk to Logan." After another brief pause, he continued. "Once she's calmed down a little, I'll let her know you called. She can have Logan call you. I don't have his number, either, and I think it might be best to give her a little while."

"Max isn't the kinda girl to crumble when something goes wrong," Sketchy mused aloud.

"I know. She's been a little off, lately. All this crap had to get to her eventually, right?"

As Ben was exiting the men's room, Sketchy had just place his phone back into his pocket and was folding up the laptop and putting it in his backpack He never noticed that the other man was just putting his own phone away. Sketchy drained the rest of his coffee in one gulp - despite cooling slightly it was still horrible, but caffeine was a necessity. He told Mitchell he had to get to Jam Pony, and Mitchell smiled and told him "You can give that up pretty soon. Once this story breaks you'll be a celebrity."

The tall stoner slash budding young newshound couldn't help but grin a little at that, even though he didn't picture a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. It would, without doubt, be a popular story, and he might get some great recognition, and some of the benefits that came with such recognition, but reporters didn't get rich, not in this day and age, and _definitely not_ tabloid reporters. "Maybe," was all he said, taking his CD-player from his backpack as he turned to leave. On the way towards the door, his eyes lingered on a gorgeous blonde in the corner by the window. A ponytail hung to her waste, and long bangs framed a slightly pale, slim face and brilliant blue eyes. Noticing him looking, she smiled, shaking her head ever-so-slightly. Sketchy smiled back a little sheepishly as he opened the door and stepped into the light haze outside. Mitchell didn't notice the girl, and Sketchy didn't notice that she rose the moment the door closed behind them, her tea untouched, the sweet smile gone.

Sketchy unchained his bike from the lamp-post as Mitchell set off in the other direction towards his car across the street. Before heading for Jam Pony, Sketchy decided to stop at Joshua's old house. The diversion plus sector checkpoints might make him a little late, but Normal was used to him being a lot _more_ than a little late. Even though the woefully-named Reagan Ronald had mellowed out slightly given recent events, he still spent a large portion of his day looking for something to complain about, and who was Sketchy to deprive him of an opportunity?

He was only two blocks from the house when he felt the phone in his pocket vibrating. Hopping the curb and braking, he yanked his earphones out and flipped the phone open. "Don't go to the house. You're being followed." He recognised the voice instantly.

"Logan? Where are you? How could you know if I'm being…"

"Don't go looking over your shoulder, either," the voice cut across him as he started to do exactly that. "Just go to work for now. There's nothing new at the house anyway."

The stunned reporter took a moment to recover from this. "Okay, but I need – " A click and a beep told him he was talking to himself. _What the hell? **Who** the hell…?_ But then he knew. The dead-eyed jerk _was _after his source! He _was_ looking to steal his story! Furious at the other reporter's audacity, Sketchy began pedalling rapidly, almost flattening a guy before hopping back onto the road.


	5. Chapter Four

The Conclave had decided almost immediately that Ray White had been weak, that he would not have survived the initiation rite. They had concluded that expending any resources to find the boy would be a total waste, and forgotten about him.

Ray's father, Ames White, had _not _forgotten his son.

Despite the fact that he was now in hiding both from the U.S. government and his own people, Ames had refused to give up the search for his son. He knew Ray was still alive; he knew because Ray was _his son_, and because Michelle Olsen, his sister-in-law, had disappeared the same week that Ray had.

While still in the service of both his former masters, he'd devoted any spare moment he could find – which wasn't much – to trying to find them. But Eyes Only and 452 had done a very good job at hiding them. Every lead he'd looked into had come up dry, though for a brief time he thought he might have had a chance of finding them, when a team of techies had managed to trace an Eyes Only hack and it finally seemed they might have had the prick. Of course he'd gotten away. White had expected him to, just as he'd expected him to wipe his hard-drive before he rabbited. But Ames knew how fallible computers were, and had hoped the same team that had tracked Eyes Only might be able to recover his hard-drive – until that idiot Farris had gone nuts and his team had shot up the whole place, completely destroying every piece of equipment there. Ames had been close to breaking his neck for that.

It had been less than two months now since Ray had been taken from him, but he was already down to his last lead. Apart from Michelle, the only family Wendy had left behind was in Ireland, probably the most popular immigration destination following The Pulse. Even though The Pulse had been very much a global disaster, financially ruining the world's remaining superpower and destroying world markets in the blink of an eye, some places had, to White's great surprise and dismay, managed to come through the crisis with very little damage to show for it. What really shocked Ames was that Ireland was one of those countries.

The small island had been a hotbed for political and civil turmoil for years, from what had been tentatively referred to as 'the troubles' in the North in the late twentieth century – even though it had never _really_ ended – to increasing immigration from all over the world for the fifteen years or so before The Pulse. In Ames' mind it had still only been a developing country at the time, with the highest crime rate in Europe, and severe racial tensions since the turn of the century. And yet, the Emerald Isle had managed to survive mass immigration from the U.S. and an almost total economic failure. The country should have wiped itself out in that chaos, but somehow they'd managed to come out on the other side, better for what had happened.

_Well, _Ames told himself, _shit happens._ With the time of The Coming rapidly approaching, this insignificant place wouldn't be much of an obstacle, nor would other states like it that had defied the odds. The Pulse had served the Conclave's purpose, and the majority of the world's once-formidable nations had been crippled beyond recovery.

Ames only hoped he could be so successful in his own purpose. But that hope was a thin one.

In remarkably little time, White had done quite well in altering his appearance. It was astonishing how much a little facial hair changed a face. He had also clipped his hair, stopped exercising, and had begun eating a disgusting amount of crap he usually would never have touched, which had given him a small paunch, and, finally, drastically altered his dress sense. In the space of a week he had gone from a clean, crisp U.S. government agent to just another Dublin scummer, complete with an unmistakable scummer accent. He himself had been sickeningly surprised with how quickly his body had changed, but knew the disgusting sight before him when he looked in a mirror meant little. He was still a far superior specimen, as anyone who screwed with him would learn, and when the disguise was no longer needed, he could be back to himself again in as little time as it had taken him to adopt this form.

Sitting by a ground floor window in an old house on the Rathgar Road, Ames peered across the street to where James and Margot Olsen could be seen in their living room. The pair hadn't started out on raising a family until they were already well into their late thirties, but had produced three girls over the next five years. Tara, Wendy, and Michelle were all – or in Wendy's and Tara's cases, had been - the spitting image of their mother; tall, and athletically slim, with very light brown hair and brown eyes. And, just like their mother, all three had eventually dyed blonde.

Now both parents were coming up on seventy, and with Margot seriously ill, the house was occupied pretty much all the time. For the past five days since Ames had arrived across the street, neither Margot nor James had left the house at all. Ames could have walked across the street and killed them both without making a sound, but that wasn't the best idea right now. With her mother dying of Leukaemia, there was a good chance that, even though in hiding, Michelle was probably in contact with them occasionally. Maybe Eyes Only had warned her about contacting them too frequently – or at all – and endangering herself and Ray.

_As if I'd harm my own son! _

Ames, however, was willing to bet Michelle thought he was no longer a threat. At least one good thing might have come out of the very public exposure of his actions. If Michelle was in touch with her dear dying mother, killing them now might alert her when next she tried to contact them, and she could be long gone from wherever the hell she'd taken his son by the time he could get there. Also, stealthy as he could be, sneaking into the house at night was a risk. James rarely slept, worry about his wife waking him at odd hours, which raised the risk of being discovered a little too much, even if the chance of James recognising him like this was decidedly slim. He needed the house empty in order to check it out properly. Phone bills, e-mail accounts, mail. Michelle was old-fashioned. She preferred to pen her letters as opposed to using e-mail, and this would no doubt be a safer option than risking a phone trace. Hopefully, given Margot's condition, she would soon need to go to a hospital, giving Ames the chance he needed to poke around.

A couple of weeks ago Ames White could've walked into any building on the planet and found out anything he needed to know about anyone. Hell, with a phone call he could've had their phone bills and email records in his hands as quick and easy as ordering a coffee. Now he'd been reduced to staking out his genetic-throwback in-laws. _I'll make it up to myself when I catch up with the bitch._ The thought made him smile a little.

* * *

"You still there? I found it." Picking up the printed pages and setting them aside, Logan read off his screen. "Ben Mitchell, born August 1988 in Chicago. Family switched coasts when he was a kid, and little Ben was sent to a prep school in Willoughby. That confirms he's a Familiar. It's the same school we found Ray White at."

"I can't believe you were right about this one," the girl on at the other end remarked. "Of all the places they'd wanna watch, why _New World Weekly_?"

"Well, apart from me, _New World Weekly_ were pretty much the only ones covering transgenics before the mainstream media got a hold of it. And when I was under, they were the guys everybody was following. They actually managed some pretty accurate coverage, considering they like to report on cyborgs in public office and people giving birth to chimps and hellspawn. And our friend Mitchell joined the staff there the week after the first transgenic was caught on camera during the checkpoint shooting."

"So he was placed there in case the rag came up with anything really dangerous." Parked across the street from Jam Pony, a little hot in her bike leathers, she took a gulp a water. "Do you want me to go after him?"

"Not yet," Logan decided after a moment. "I wanna see how they react to this. They might even let the story run if they think they can follow the trail and grab me." Of course, the bigger risk was to Sketchy, but Logan had considered this and decided to try it anyway, trusting that she would be able to keep him safe. "For now, just watch out for Sketchy. If Mitchell or anybody else tries anything, you know what to do. For now, just let this play out."

"You're the boss. Or would be if I was getting paid."

"Are you sure you want to be at this alone?" he asked, not for the first time. "These Familiars are pretty tough, and this _will_ come to a fight. If there are more than one of them, I really don't like those odds."

"There's nobody else. We don't have a line on any other transgenics outside of Terminal City, and anybody from in there would probably be recognised. And when this does turn into a fight, no way we wanna try matching Ordinaries against Familiars. Besides, nobody said this would be a walk in the park."

Sketchy emerged from Jam Pony and drifted off towards Sector Eight. "I gotta go. He's leaving."

"Alright. Be careful."

Logan had barely hung up, and was placing the dossier on Ben Mitchell in the file he was collecting on Familiars, when the phone rang again.

"Hello?" Hearing the voice on the other end instantly ruined the slightly elevated mood he'd been in since hearing that Max had survived the bombing unscathed. True, Alec hadn't been so lucky, but Logan was willing to bet that with a little help from Sam Carr, he'd bounce right back. Transgenics always did. "How the hell did you get this number?" he demanded.

"I'm fine, thank you," came the curt reply. "I'm sure you all grieved horribly when you thought I was gone."

"Yeah, we all had a good cry. The wake was a blast."

"Irish wake, I hope," Lydecker mused. "They always throw the best funerals, especially once the booze is being passed around. Their funerals are more fun than most weddings."

"Is there something in particular you wanted?"

"I saw the bombing. How is she?"

Logan had always been more than a little suspicious of Lydecker's sudden turnaround, but the clear concern in his voice almost made him wonder if maybe he should be more trusting. Almost. "She's dead," he told him, hoping he sounded as upset as he should.

"If she were dead, we wouldn't be trading bad jokes," Lydecker told him matter-of-factly. "Hell, if she were dead, I doubt you'd even have it together enough to remember trying to trace this call. Won't work, by the way."

Sure enough, as Logan glanced at his screen, a message appeared. 'Signal scrambler in effect. No solution available. Trace failed.'

"Max made it," he admitted. "She's fine."

"And 494?" He sounded as relieved as Logan had been at hearing this.

"Alec. He's in pretty bad shape. Head trauma. I've sent them some help."

"Then you know an easy way in and out of Terminal City?" Lydecker queried.

"If that's what you want," Logan spat, "you can forget about it."

"Just thought I'd try. How about asking Max to come see me? Some place public, if she can manage it." When Logan didn't answer right away, he asked, "How about the gallery where Joshua sent his paintings? I've yet to see them myself, but they've drawn quite a lot of attention, especially since it got out that the artist is a transgenic."

"Why do you want to meet her?" Logan asked, not really expecting an answer.

"That's between me and her," the once-colonel-once-spook-still-annoyingly-cryptic-pain-in-the-ass told him. "I'll be at the gallery tomorrow at four. Tell her I have answers for her."

Before Logan could ask him what he was talking about, Lydecker hung up on him.

"Great to hear from you again," he grumbled angrily to the dead phone line.


	6. Chapter Five

"Mayor Kellerman, do you have anything to say to the friends and 'family' of the victims?" - **"..sures are being taken to prevent future attacks?"** - _"How do you see this most recent attack affecting the city's relationship with the occupying force of Terminal City?"_

Mayor Brian William Kellerman was a tall, hawk-eyed man who, despite having lost his commanding Marine Corps physique since taking public office, still managed to instantly take control of any crowd simply by standing motionless and staring above all of their heads until all fell silent. He never had to wait more than a few seconds, even with the press.

The instant the reporters quietened, he set his gaze on the man immediately in front of him on the steps of City Hall, whose nametag identified him as being from _New World Weekly_. "I'm getting a little tired of repeating myself, Mr. Mitchell. The Transgenics currently residing in Terminal City are _not_ considered by this office, State, or the current Administration, to be an Occupying Force," he announced sternly. "Given recent developments such as the siege at the Jam Pony premises, and the mountain of evidence of corruption by the former agent in command of our efforts against Transgenics, the government has been forced to rethink its stance on matters such as the civil rights, if any, of the Manticore escapees."

"Sir, is it true you just came from an emergency meeting with Senator McKinley and Governor Hallet?" The speaker was a short, stiff little woman the Mayor recognised from a local network, but whose name he couldn't quite recall. Apparently she was well-known enough not to bother with a visible Press Pass, _but damned if I can remember her name, _he thought.

"Given the untested waters we've all found ourselves treading as of late, it is the unfortunate responsibility of local and State officials to hammer out policy regarding Transgenics and their presence in Seattle," the Mayor responded. "Today's attack made it necessary for Senator McKinley, Governor Hallet and myself to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the defence of Terminal City, and the rights of those within to defend themselves." He paused a moment, hoping that his expression didn't betray his hesitance at what was to come next. "Effective immediately, anyone attempting to enter Terminal City will be met with immediate deadly force. Additional soldiers of the National Guard will be placed in key positions around the perimeter fences, with permission to fire upon anyone who tries to breach that perimeter. There – will – be – no – warning – shots."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the expected clamour of dozens of questions being fired from every direction arose, but again died the instant he continued to speak. "This for the residents of Terminal City. In the event that anyone does manage to breach entry into Sector Seven, you are authorised to take whatever necessary action to prevent possible attacks, with no fear of reprisals from Police, Military, or Governmental forces."

"Mr Mayor?" Mitchell loudly cut across all other voices. "What about the Transgenics confinement in Terminal City? Some groups have been asking that they be allowed to come and go as they please." Mitchell's opinion of this suggestion was clear in his tone, earning him a couple of glares from his assembled colleagues.

"At this time," Kellerman told him, "the previous restrictions remain in place. I have to ask that all those within Terminal City _remain_ within. We're working on a safe way to set up a supply chain in order to provide the Terminal City with essential goods and equipment, and hope to have it set up within the next couple of days. That will be all for now. Excuse me."

He pushed his way past the crowd and made his way towards his car. Mitchell was the only reporter who didn't follow him, yelling more questions. Instead, he removed his _New World Weekly_ nametag from his jacket, and pinned another in its place as he entered the building.

As soon as he was in the door he found who he was looking for. McKinley was engaged in conversation with the Governor, so Mitchell kept his distance and waited for them to finish. Out of curiosity, he turned his head slightly, and his enhanced hearing picked up their exchange.

"Why bother setting up supplies for them at all?" Hallet asked. "Why not just let 'em try sneaking around Seattle for their own supplies, and let the lynch mobs have them?"

"Oh, wonderful," McKinley sneered at him. "So they get picked off one at a time on the rare occasions when they actually get recognised for what they are? It's a great idea if you think you can wait ten years or so. We can't. What I have in mind will take long enough as is. Stupid crap like that bombing this morning, while it may have given me a warm fuzzy feeling all over, does nothing to help us."

"It might help if you _told us_ what it is you're up to."

The look McKinley gave him would have melted a glacier. "The mere fact that you're stupid enough to keep asking when I specifically told you to drop it proves that you don't deserve to know." Each word dropped with the force of a meteor. Governor Hallet knew their talk was over. He regarded his colleague somewhat apprehensively for a moment, then strode away a little too quickly to look dignified doing so. Mitchell, watching him leaving, thought he looked like a child who'd just been spanked and was trying to show how big a boy he was by not crying while there were still grown-ups about.

Mitchell approached the Senator as he set off down a corridor towards the temporary office that had been arranged for him on the premises. "Senator McKinley? Sir, my name is Ben Mitchell, I'm with Local Public Information," he told him, naming one of the dozen or so government-sponsored publications available in Seattle. "I was wondering if I could speak to you about today's attack and the response Mayor Kellerman just announced."

McKinley continued walking but glanced sideways at Mitchell, his expression betraying no hint of recognition. "I can only spare a few minutes, if you'd care to accompany me." he said. "What exactly is it you want to know about?"

"The military response, sir. How can you guarantee that the extra Guardsmen will be able to prevent future breaches of the Terminal City perimeter?"

They passed swiftly through the anteroom outside the Senators office, where McKinley afforded his secretary a brief nod by way of greeting. "Well, obviously, for security reasons I can't go into much detail," he responded as he opened the door, allowing Mitchell to enter before him, "but I can assure you we're doing more than just posting a few extra sentries." The door clicked quietly shut.

"I just got your message when I came out of the meeting with those two idiots," McKinley informed. "How much was in the file?"

"Not too much. It was like the teaser trailer before the full one. It starts at the beginning, cites a few of the ancient homes, and discusses the legend from the Kiloma."

"That's not very much," McKinley noted. "I take it he's promised more?"

"Apparently he's still working on some of the finer details himself. He has a drop point for the kid to pick it up from."

"He wants to see how we'll react," McKinley suggested. "Assuming it is actually Cale, he doesn't need any help from a tabloid to bring this or any other story into the open."

"Then why not just broadcast the whole thing himself?" Mitchell queried. "He's got a lot more supporters among the throwbacks than _New World Weekly_ or anyone else could dream of. They believe almost everything he says."

"Because this way he gets to watch the results from afar, with less risk to himself. If we let the story run, the things he may wind up revealing could be very dangerous. If we block it, you can be pretty much guaranteed the rumours will spread just as quickly as if he'd broadcast them. It's a clever move."

McKinley filled a cup of coffee each for himself and his guest. It had been brewed a while ago, and tasted quite stale despite being kept hot, but neither man really minded. "There are a couple of things about this that might help us out," the Senator continued. "This reporter, Theodore; do you think you can gain his trust?"

Mitchell shook his head "Doubtful. He's not about to blow Cale's cover for him, and he's being pretty protective of how he gets his information. And like you said before, if Cale is exposed he'll just slip deeper underground, which doesn't go a long way towards helping us shut him down. Low profile is what he does best."

"Then it'll have to be a tail."

"We'll need someone who won't be recognised. I tried following him this morning. Tactical error on my part. It was stupid not to assume Eyes Only would be having him watched." He took a sip of his coffee. "I couldn't spot his guard, but there definitely was one. Theodore got a call. I don't know if it was from Cale directly, but the kid changed course from wherever he was headed and went to Jam Pony instead."

"I doubt there are many throwbacks that could have gotten around you like that," McKinley told him. It was a simple statement of fact, not a compliment or an attempt to charm the other man. Mitchell's past triumphs were all people needed to look at if they wanted to know just how good he was at what he did without ever being noticed or failing to miss a detail.

In the summer of 2009, Ben Mitchell, barely into his twenties at the time, had been placed in charge of a small group of Phalanx trained youths like himself, and a pair of Intel experts, and tasked with the economic destruction of the world's last superpower, and the escalation of the occupation in Iraq into World War Three. Unfortunately things hadn't gone quite to plan. The attack worked perfectly, as did Mitchell's plan to frame an Al-Queda splinter-group with connections to the Iranian government, deposed Taliban leaders, and even an aspiring war-profiteer within the Shin-Bet. The world was all but ready to be set aflame in a war the newly crippled Roman Empire couldn't possibly have hoped to win.

But then, in an act of desperate appeasement unheard of since the British betrayal of the Cossacks, the Israelis and Iranians had worked together to round up every man and woman suspected of having been involved in the Pulse, or had offered aid of any kind to the suspects. Within six months, over seventeen hundred were captured and handed over to US forces in Iraq. The Israelis had even handed over their high-ranking, highly-informed traitor. In typical Shin-bet superspy fashion, the man was not about to let himself be interrogated by foreign agents, and lacking any appropriate tools – even his shoelaces had been taken – opted to swallow his tongue. But that wasn't a great blow, considering the show of brutal force the United States Marine Corps got to display by publicly executing all the others.

In the turmoil following the Pulse, few Americans could be found to care when the prisoners were summarily executed, most without trial and none with a _fair_ trial. Indeed, the executions were merely a more organised version of what had been happening all over America. Entire families of Middle-Eastern descent – or who just _looked_ like they were of Middle-Eastern descent - were being driven out of their homes, beaten, run off, or killed, left, right and centre. The popular neo-Nazi creed of 'America for Americans' became very popular for a time, spray-painted onto peoples homes, carved onto victims front doors, and in the case of one particularly vicious gang in California, carved into the victims themselves.

The downside to this kind of chaos was that it eventually proved that sometimes even the worst kind of bloodlust could be sated. America didn't quite destroy itself with violence, nor did the hoped-for war with the entire Middle-East ever come. There was, of course, a fall-back plan. During the mayhem of the two years immediately following the Pulse, politicians were shuffled in and out of the fold faster than most people could keep up. Such upheaval had paved the way for people like McKinley and quite a few of his colleagues, and even a few useful throwbacks too stupid to know they were being manipulated for the ends of a power that had been planning their destruction for centuries.

"A transgenic?" Mitchell suggested.

"I'll get you a copy of the Manticore database," McKinley told him. "Study the pictures, and keep a close eye out whenever you're with the reporter. You should be able to recognise the guard. I imagine there'll only be the one."

"Will do. What about the story?"

"Let it run," the Senator ordered, "for now. I'll contact the Conclave and explain the situation. I doubt they'll disagree, though obviously some damage control will be called for."

Mitchell wasn't all that surprised to hear this. "You think this can help us get to Cale?"

"I imagine so." McKinley drained the last of his coffee and smiled as he put the mug down. "Besides," he said, "there's not much Cale or anyone else can say or do at this point that will make the slightest difference. Their time is almost up. Pretty soon, we won't have to hide anymore. In fact, there are some throwbacks whose deaths I'd like to watch personally. By the time they realise what we've done to them, it won't matter what they know or who they tell. There won't be anyone left to try and avenge them."

"The Transgenics could still be a problem," Mitchell pointed out.

"How? They're boxed into Terminal City. All they can do is watch the throwbacks die out. And when _they're_ gone, we fall on that rat hole and exterminate them. They can't _hope_ to put up any kind of fight."

This prediction seemed to satisfy Mitchell, who set down his own empty mug and made for the door, where he paused and turned. "Has there been an update on Alain Sandeman?"

McKinley regarded him crossly. "He gave up that name a long time ago. To us he's still Ames White."

"He's a disgrace," Mitchell spat.

"The Conclave disagrees with you. Of course if he's captured he'll be punished for abandoning his mission. He should have known to come to us; his use as an agent may have expired, but he's still one of us. The Conclave intends to remind him of this."

Mitchell made to leave, disgusted at the thought of Sandeman's son returning to the fold.

"We tracked him to London, since you asked," McKinley told him. "From there we don't know yet, but we have people looking for him. We don't think he's left Europe. If he shows his face, he'll be found. And if it's the will of the Conclave to welcome him back among his people, that _is_ what will happen."

Mitchell knew it was pointless to argue. "The Manticore database?"

"You'll have it tonight. And we'll have a constant watch over this Theodore by tomorrow morning."

"Very well. I'll report as soon as I have anything new. Fe'nos tol."

"Fe'nos tol."


	7. Chapter Six

**Author's Notes :For anyone who's curious about the time passing while all of this is going on, everything from the first chapter up to the end of this one takes place in the space of a single day. If there are any significant gaps between scenes or chapters, they will be noted.**

**Even though Ames White put in an appearance in the last chapter, he probably won't be seen again for a while. He does have an important role to play in the story, but there's a lot going on.**

* * *

The instant he exited the tunnel leading from the house Logan had bought for those inside Terminal City to come and go without being noticed, he found himself staring down the barrel of Mole's old Mossberg.

"Name," Mole spat.

Sam was a little more used to the bizarre than most Ordinaries, having been called in to help with Zack when he'd been donning his short-lived cyborg look, and met Joshua face-to-face when Logan had been in need of a blood transfusion. It also helped that Mole's face had been popping up on the news lately, from the Jam Pony crisis to today's bombing. The lizard-man's appearance didn't unsettle him at all.

He was not _at all_ used to having guns stuck in his face. This unsettled him quite a bit.

"Umm, Carr," he responded shakily. "Carr, Sam, uh, Sam Carr..." Pausing for a moment to try and regain a little composure, he continued. "Logan sent me, to che-"

"Let's go." Resetting the safety on the shotgun, he moved behind the portable MRI Sam had dragged with him down the tunnel and began pushing. "Will this be enough to figure out what's wrong with him?"

"Should be," Sam supplied hopefully. "It'll help point to most intracranial injuries as well as any CT scan, assuming you know what to look for."

Mole placed the shotgun on top of the machine, then reached into his jacket pocket. Finding an already cut cigar and his lighter, he held the cigar in his mouth and spoke around it as he used his free hand to light up. "Uh, you do realize we're not listed in any of the standard medical texts, right?"

"Yes, but I'm hoping the more vital anatomy of the brain in a Transgenic is more or less the same as in everybody else. I've yet to perform a brain scan on a Transgenic. Odds are your brains have far more active areas than a normal person, but the basic functional areas ought to be the same, or close. No point having one portion of your brain saying you can leap tall buildings in a single bound, if the basic stuff that lets you walk around in the first place doesn't work. How's Max? I hear she was pretty shaken up."

"Pretty big understatement," Mole huffed, blowing an aura of clove-smelling smoke around his head. "She's hardly said two words except to tell everyone who got close to get out of her way. Odds are she's still hovering over him. I think she's losin' it."

"I'll check on her once I've got some answers about Alec."

The entered what seemed to be an old warehouse. Inside were a bunch of long tables with thin mattresses and pillows on them. On counters lining the walls were collections of odd scraps of basic medical materials, and stacks of pill bottles filled mostly with Tryptophan. Although it wasn't exactly a sterile environment, Sam looked around and imagined it was about as clean as any place in Terminal City was ever likely to be.

Only two of the makeshift sickbeds were occupied. Alec was laid out on one, his clothes removed, with a thin blanket draped over him, and a bracing collar around his neck. On the one immediately next to it, Max sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, her dark eyes fixed intently on Alec, as if hoping to force his eyes open by sheer force of will.

"Hi, Max," Sam greeted. "How are you feeling?" he asked, not really expecting a response, and not getting one. She looked fine, except for a gash above her right eye, but she never so much as glanced up.

"Where's the goddamn cord?" Mole asked.

"There is none. Portables have a six hour battery life. Let's just get him into it. Gently, we don't want to cause any more damage to his clavicle."

Once the machine was powered up, Sam checked to make sure all the display screens were working, and entered the keypad command to extend the bio-bed, which Mole helped to lift Alec gently onto. Even before he keyed in the command to retract, Sam noted that apart from his neck the only visible injuries were a few small cuts and a large, purple bruise on his left cheek, and wondered how bad things could really be.

Pretty soon he had his answers. "See this grey area?" He pointed to an area on one of the screens that seemed isolated from most of Alec's brain. While most of what was shown was clearly very active despite his apparent comatose state, this one grey patch was one of very few areas that seemed dead by comparison. "This swelling is constricting the blood flow between both hemispheres of his brain. Any normal person would have been dead in minutes from the impact needed to cause swelling of this magnitude.

"Also, in this condition, anyone else would be showing activity in less than two percent of the brain. Even under optimal circumstances, the average male of Alec's age, fully conscious and working on complicated arithmetic, likely wouldn't be showing anything over six percent activity. Alec's brain, right now, is showing over _twenty_ percent, with blood flowing almost everywhere, on both hemispheres."

"What does that mean?"

Sam almost leapt at Max breaking her silence. "It means it's not a coma," he responded after a moment. "I don't care how much more advanced Trasngenics are, his brain is far too active for a comatose state. High response to painful stimulus; his pupils seem alert. It's more like a mild catatonia than a coma."

For a time nobody said anything. Sam stood over the VDUs biting his lower lip, Max turned back to Alec, and Mole, having already burned right through his cigar, began searching his pockets for another.

"It's the nanites!" Sam exclaimed suddenly. "X-5s have nanites in their blood. Maybe some others do too, I don't know, but X-5s do. Nanites use blood-flow to move around the body and brain. That's why everything seems so active. The nanites are focusing on his brain, dulling his senses, keeping him asleep."

"Why?" Mole asked.

"Maybe to help give his system the chance to start healing the repairing the damage," the doctor suggested. "But I don't think it's going to work." He again indicated the grey area. "I don't think even X-5 physiology is capable of repairing this kind of neurological damage unaided."

Max leapt up from her bed. "There has to be something," she said pleadingly.

"There is. Usually I'd suggest removing a portion of the skull cap in order to relieve the pressure, but this," he held out his arms and glanced around the warehouse, "isn't exactly the ideal setting for something like that. Given the givens, I'd recommend burr holes. Three holes around the edges of the bruising ought to be more than enough. That done, the blood – and the nanites and stem cells – should flow freely enough through the damaged area to make repairs."

* * *

Sketchy had just finished his last run for his short shift, and was chatting animatedly with a short black girl with afro puffs. Across the street, the blonde girl sat on her silver Kawasaki, munching on a cold hot dog from a nearby vendor. 24/7 security duty didn't leave a lot of options when it came to food, not to mention other essentials. Sketchy had a habit of dropping whatever he was doing and disappearing for no good reason, so she couldn't risk dropping in anywhere to get something a little more appetizing.

She knew from Logan that the girl he was talking to was a good friend of Max, and had been her room-mate until the siege had forced her to move into Terminal City full-time, and imagined that Sketchy was bragging about the story Logan had left for him, and his new promotion at the magazine. The conversation ended with Cindy saying something Sketchy apparently didn't appreciate, and strutting off while he stood there looking confused and a mildly upset.

"Hey."

She turned and found a girl with close-cropped blond hair standing in front of her. She'd met her once at Logan's place, and hadn't really though much of her. "Asha, right?"

"Yep. Logan asked me to bring you this," she announced, and handed over a small shoulder bag with a logo for some old band on the front. "Your new I.D and background information, all tailor-made."

She instantly plucked out her new Sector Pass, and tossed her old one, a cheap forgery her Tryptophan supplier had been able to get her, into a barrel full of garbage. She read her new name off the card Logan had made for her, apparently on the Sector Police's own stationary. "Why do I need a new identity?"

Ten minutes later, Sketchy was talking to Cindy again as they were leaving, Cindy on one last run before closing, Sketchy headed for Crash. As Cindy hopped on her bike and headed south towards the nearest checkpoint, Sketchy walked in the opposite direction, leaving his own bike chained to a pillar inside Jam Pony for the night.

As he got inside he spotted a couple of other guys who'd finished at the same time as him over by the pool tables. Sky held up an empty pitcher and pointed to the bar, prompting Sketchy to go get another.

When he got over to the tables with a full pitcher of heavily watered beer – heavily watered because it was the bartender's own brew, strong enough to drop most patrons before they had a chance to empty their wallets – there was a girl he didn't recognise standing with them, chalking a cue as Sky racked a game.

She smiled at Sketchy when he got there, and he realised he did actually recognise her, though couldn't quite place it. "The coffee shop today," she told him by way of greeting. "You were with the faceless guy in the bad suit."

"Uh, yeah. He...he works for me!" Sketchy piped.

She laughed a little, clearly not believing him, but didn't call him on it. "What do you do?"

"Most of the time I work with these guys at Jam Pony, but I'm at _New World Weekly _part-time too."

"The magazine?"

"Yeah. Up until now I was just taking photos, but I just got promoted. The boss is giving me a chance to write my first story," he bragged. "You?"

"Nothing at the moment." She lowered her eyes. "Trust-fund baby," she added, embarrassed.

"Nothing wrong with a life of leisure," Sketchy told her. "I tried it once. I was broke within three days, so that didn't work out too great."

Sky whistled and tossed the cue ball. The girl caught it and slapped it down in the semi-circle.

"I'm Sketchy, by the way."

The girl took a forceful break shot, potting no less than three balls. She looked up at him, as if sizing him up, and smiled again. Sketchy was having trouble looking her in the eyes, and wondered if he looked as flushed as he felt. Somewhere behind him, he heard Sky chuckling.

"Melissa."

* * *

Back in Terminal City, Sam dropped a blood-stained steel hand-drill into a sink full of boiling water. The MRI was powered down, and Alec lay on the bed again. Max stood by his side, holding his hand in one of her own, while she nervously bit the nails of her other hand. Mole was on his seventh cigar for the past hour.

Sam watched them both as he scrubbed the drill. He'd seen Max by Logan's side when he'd been ill, and even then she hadn't looked nearly so distraught. Mole watched them both pretty nervously, clearly worried about Max. Or maybe just afraid of her. He'd mentioned before to Sam that he thought Max was losing it, and Sam wasn't sure he was exaggerating. He thought about everything that had gone in the past few months, from the disaster in the sewers, the dog-boy who was involved being a friend, to the Jam Pony siege, and a Transgenic serial killer who'd targeted her friends in order to get close to her.

Now Alec lay unconscious with a loose bandage covering the three holes drilled in his skull. They'd put Alec back in the MRI after the burr holes had been drilled, and already a slight improvement had shown. The swollen area looked slightly brighter, indicating decreased pressure, and a slow thin trickle of blood had been seen passing right over the centre of the grey. Sam was confident that Alec would wake sometime tomorrow, and had said as much, but this had had little effect on Max. Sam could tell by looking at her that she had somehow figured out a way to blame herself for this, just like she'd probably managed to reason that everything else that had gone wrong in the world lately was somehow her fault.

Logan had asked Sam if he could talk to Max, and find out how she was doing. It seemed that she hadn't been saying much to anyone lately, and the only times she and Logan had spoken was when he'd called her.

Not for his lack of trying, but Sam had barely been able to get two words out of Max as he'd checked her injuries. Apart from the cut over her eye she had a pretty big bump on the back of her head. While any ordinary person would probably want to sleep that off with some hefty painkillers to help, Max ignored it, wincing only slightly when Sam touched it. Her only response to all his questions, not just about her injuries, was "I'm fine."

He left the drill in the hot water and dried his hands. "I'll leave this here for now," he said, nodding at the portable MRI. "I doubt we'll need it again, but in case we do, I had enough trouble sneaking it out the hospital once. Twice would really be pushing it. Hopefully by morning he'll start to come out of it," he repeated for Max's benefit, "just don't expect any hand-sprints."

"He's gonna be pissed when he sees those bald patches," Mole chuckled, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"Well, they're pretty small," the doctor suggested. "He can wear a baseball cap for a while if he's worried they'll ruin his chances with the ladies." Even Max smiled a little at this.

"I'm in the hospital at noon tomorrow," Sam told them. "I'll drop by around ten to check on him."

"Thanks, doc. I'll go with you as far as the house," Mole offered. He looked somewhat pointedly at Max.

When they got outside, Max caught up with them. She said nothing, but hugged Sam briefly by way of thanks, before returning inside. When she got back to Alec, she sat beside him on the bed, holding his hand.

"Girl's a wreck," Mole commented as they set off.

"How long has she been out of it?"

"Well, obviously it wasn't _this_ bad before today, but she's been keeping to herself since the Kelpy thing. Probably why Logan wants to meet."

"When are you meeting him?" Sam asked.

"Now. He's up at the house."


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

**The Morning After**

* * *

The makeshift infirmary was far enough from the fence-lines that only Joshua and perhaps one or two others would be able to hear the sound of the crowds, and even then with difficulty. The deceptive peace within was a rarity, and it was to areas like this, in the centre of Terminal City, that any Transgenic who wanted a little quiet time would come. Quite a few, especially the children, were accustomed to the dead silence of the Manticore barracks, and despite the fact that their former masters had been raising them as warriors adaptable to any atmosphere and situation, had trouble sleeping where the riotous clamour could be heard.

Even though Max had told herself she wouldn't sleep again unless she absolutely had to, the quiet of the infirmary coupled with the mental exhaustion of recent events found her dead to the world when Joshua and Mole came to find her.

Receiving no response to whispering her name a couple of times, Joshua gently shook her. She stirred slowly, the started a slightly upon realising she was lying next to a still-unconscious Alec, who lay covered by nothing more than a thin blanket. She felt her face heating up at this, but Joshua seemed not to notice her embarrassment, and Mole pretended not to.

"Hey, big fella," she muttered sleepily. "What's up?"

"Lydecker," Joshua growled, his anger at the name waking Max up even more than the name itself.

"What about him?" she asked, thinking about the last time she'd heard his name mentioned, when Logan had shown her the photos of his car being pulled from the river. She'd told him then that Lydecker had probably survived the crash, despite what the cops thought, but she had to admit to herself that she was surprised to hear his name again now.

"Logan called last night," Mole lied, leaving out, as per Logan's request, the mention of the actual visit, and the reason for it. "Lydecker got in touch with him yesterday, wants to meet with you."

Joshua growled again, and Max laid a hand on his shoulder. "He putting together a family album?"

"All he said is that he has answers for you. Maybe he can tell us a thing or two about the Familiars."

"Maybe he is one," groaned a voice from behind Max. She turned to see Alec's eyes open as he tried to sit up.

"Alec!" Joshua barked excitedly, delighted to see his friend waking up. He'd only been out for one day, but there wasn't a soul in the room who wouldn't agree it had been a very long day.

Max gently pushed him back down on the bed. "Relax," she breathed. "You're gonna have to take it easy for a while."

"Fair enough," he muttered, looking around groggily. "What happened?"

"Bomber jumped the fence," Mole told him. "You shot him. Boom. Right in your face."

"Oh." Max was glad to see he had the grace to look embarrassed. "That."

"Yeah, _that_," Max spat, her concern suddenly replaced by fury at his stupidity. "You ran right in front of him! Almost got yourself killed for no reason."

"If I hadn't done that we'd probably both have been killed. I feel fine, by the way. 'Cept for a killer headache," he added, his hand going to the bandages wrapped around his head. "How long was I out of it?"

"Since yesterday morning. Logan sent his doctor friend," said Joshua. "Shaved your head, drilled holes in your skull."

Mole chuckled at the worry on Alec's face. "Not completely," he assured him, "but you'll be wearin' a hat for a while." He turned to Max. "Logan and some of our guys have been trying to dig up what they can about Lydecker and figure out what he's been up to lately. He wants that meet this afternoon. The gallery Joshua's paintings are at."

"They turned up anything?"

"Shots from security cameras all over the city. One from one of the ten thousand news cams at the perimeter from a couple of days ago."

"I'll be there in a minute."

Mole gave Alec a brief nod before he left. When he was gone, Max turned to Alec again. "I'm sorry," she said. "For biting your head off like that. When that bomb went off… I thought you were dead. I thought I'd gott…"

"This has gotta stop, Max," he cut her off. "We've all been through hell, lately, but it's not your fault. Kelpy was completely whacked. If it hadn't been you he'd gone gaga about it would have been someone else, and there's no telling how long he might have gone on. He could have butchered dozens of people before somebody put him down. Hell, if not for you we'd all still be stuck inside Manticore."

"I'd still be in the basement," Joshua added.

"I know the past few months have really sucked, for pretty much all of us," Alec continued. "But we're starting to do okay, now. It'll take a while. Maybe years, maybe longer. But we're out in the world now, and we have a shot at having real lives. Because of you. Right now, I think about the only thing really bringing the mood down around here is you."

"I've just been a little off lately," Max protested.

"More than a little. I know you didn't ask for the job, but everyone considers you the boss around here. And nobody likes looking over their shoulders wondering if the boss has lost it, 'cos if she has, we're pretty much screwed. We can't exactly put Mole at the negotiating table with the Ordinaries; they'd all piss themselves sitting that close to a lizard-man with a shotgun."

Max had to stop herself from laughing at the image of Mole in a room with McKinley and Kellerman, both wearing their crisp suits, faces of stone, every hair in place, and puddles at their feet. "So basically, I'm the pretty face everyone needs to see if they're gonna get used to the idea of Transgenics," she remarked.

"If we had a six-year-old girl with blond curls and a great singing voice, we'd go with her," Alec chuckled. "Shit happens, we're stuck with you. God help us."

Even Joshua, who usually wouldn't bear any kind of jibe at Max's expense, giggled a little at this. It was an odd sound coming from someone his size.

Smiling, Max leaned forward and hugged Alec, who had to stifle a groan of pain, and kissed him on the cheek. "Get some rest." Checking her watch, she told him Sam would be coming soon to check on him, and asked Joshua if he'd stick around.

When she got to the security station, seven time-stamped pictures of Lydecker, taken by various security systems, were displayed next to one from a Channel 3 news camera. "How are you tracking the snapshots down?"

"Logan sent us a copy of the same facial recognition program he's using," Dix responded. "We started with places we thought Lydecker might go, hacked their security networks, and ran all the video from their cameras through the program.

"Being dead has its advantages; the obvious one being nobody comes looking for you. Sure, he can't go for a beer with his old buddies – assuming Lydecker's ever had a friend in his life – and government buildings are off limits, but it looks like he's been moving around pretty freely. Libraries and college campuses seem to be his thing now. Information gathering, I guess, but it's anyone's guess what he's trying to find out."

"He's researching the Familiars. That's what he was doing when they ran him off the road. Anything else?"

"Not yet. This could be pretty slow work, but hopefully the next thing these shots will show is where he's holed up."

Glancing around the constantly expanding security station, Max saw screens being set up for new cameras that had been place around and within Terminal City. So far, the crowds had all been gathered around one area; what had once been the main entrance to the former centre of Seattle's biochemical industrial zone. They stayed there for the simple reason that this was where the news cameras were. Even true-believers, like the suicide bomber who had come after her and Alec, chose coming in this way as opposed to sneaking in somewhere else and having better odds of causing real damage. Just in case, however, cameras were being placed all around Terminal City, on the off-chance that somebody who actually meant business, be it Familiars or government forces, tried to make their way in. Additional patrols were also in place; sentries could be seen on almost every screen.

Max's attention was drawn to a half-dozen guys working feverishly on a row of computers off in a corner. They seemed to be hooked into networks for phone and internet companies, cable networks, and a couple of government institutions. "What are they up to?"

Dix explained that they were setting up a security net for Logan's broadcasts. When Logan next went on the wire, they planned to run interference through a series of ghost signals. "Anyone tries tracing Eyes Only, they'll find about fifty of him, from Switzerland to Signapore," he bragged. "My idea."

"What time did Lydecker give for the meet?" she asked Mole.

"Four."

"Drop the search for now," she ordered Dix. "I want you to start running some of own people through the facial recognition system. I need faces that haven't been caught on camera."

"I doubt there's anyone he wouldn't identify at first sight," Dix pointed out. "He was running Manticore for years, from the time Sandeman got ran off until Renfro came along and swiped the big chair out from under him."

"It doesn't matter who Lydecker recognises. I don't think he'll try anything at a first meeting, especially if he sees us out in force. It's everybody else that could be a problem."

"What about you? Your face is everywhere. We could put you standing next to the Pope and the President, and you'd still be the first one everybody recognises."

"I'll work something out."

* * *

Sketchy hadn't slept much, and was already dragging himself into the bathroom when his alarm started to beep. Ignoring it, he shut the door behind him and started running the shower. It turned out he'd already been beaten to all the hot water by his neighbours, and could only stand under the icy flow for about thirty seconds before he stepped out again, shivering.

As he brushed his teeth he engaged in a staring contest with his reflection in the dirty mirror, suddenly remembering why he'd barely slept.

The previous night at Crash, he'd spent hours talking to Melissa. Once they were a few pitchers in the conversation got to the point where Sketchy had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He only knew that if he stopped talking he might not be able to find his voice again in front of her. It was probably the longest anyone had put up with him in a single sitting since Natalie had dumped him after finding out he'd cheated on her, and she actually seemed to care what he was saying – another rarity.

They'd played a few rounds of pool, during which Sketchy got to take maybe five shots the entire time, and some foosball, where the ball flew around the table so fast Sketchy could never get a bead on it, let alone take a shot, before sitting down again and talking 'till closing time.

Sketchy eventually decided to give his mouth a rest, hoping he would actually be able to speak if he needed to. Melissa told him she'd just come to Seattle from New York, needing to leave her ex and her friends, all of whom were his friends, too, behind her for a while.

When she mentioned that she needed to get herself a job, really just to keep herself busy as she wasn't exactly in dire straits cash-wise, Sketchy recommended Jam Pony, telling her it was a great job for anyone who didn't care about money, benefits, or hours, didn't mind unfriendly customers who gave lousy tips, and liked being constantly insulted by an angry, bespectacled Republican who used modelling cement in his hair.

Everything had gone pretty well until he'd walked her home. Living close by, she left her motorcycle behind, saying she'd come back for it in the morning, and they went towards her place. It was there that Sketchy had lost his nerve.

She'd gone quiet in the doorway, and Sketchy had the feeling that as opposed to inviting him in, she was giving him the chance to invite himself. Instead, he'd panicked and opted to leave, his choice receiving the same half-amused, half-pitying smile she'd given him back in the coffee shop, except this time she wasn't shaking her head.

As soon as he'd left he'd regretted it, and had been arguing with himself about it most of the sleepless night. The voice Sketchy thoroughly wished had been louder before they'd gotten to her door had spent the night badgering him over how he'd never get so close to a girl like that again, and there was no other voice to counter it. Suffice it to say, it had been a fairly one-sided argument.

Drying off quickly, Sketchy tried to take his mind off of Melissa by going through the file folder Logan had left for him at Joshua's old house. He flicked to the part about the Kiloma burial site in Seattle. Logan hadn't mentioned where exactly this site had been, but had noted that the condemned building it had been underneath had apparently been the site of an environmental cleanup.

Making a note to find out what company had been in charge of the supposed cleanup, Sketchy dropped the file into his backpack, dressed hurriedly, and grabbed a couple of Pop Tarts on way out the door.

It was only when he got outside that he remembered he'd left his bike at Jam Pony. When he got there, it was Original Cindy he found behind the dispatch counter. It seemed Normal was at a local police station, having come out of his apartment to find his car spray-painted pink, windscreen et al.

"Max is sneakin' outta Terminal City today," she told him in a whisper. When Sketchy had come to Jam Pony the previous day, it had been to find Cindy sitting over by her locker in tears, while the news repeated for what must have been the hundredth time the story of the bombing. He'd thought for a moment he might have to slap her to stop her jumping for joy when he relayed what Dix had told him. "She didn't say why, but she'll swing by tonight if she doesn't run into any trouble and have to turn tail."

"Your place?" Sketchy asked, receiving a nod in response. "I'll try and drop by if I can. If not, tell her I said 'hi'."

"Yeah, me too." Both O.C and Sketchy jumped a little at Normal's sudden appearance, and Sketchy quickly looked around to make sure nobody else had overheard.

"I'll take _that_," Normal announced grandly, plucking the headset away from Cindy and placing it carefully on his own head. He made no further comment about Max, and instead rounded on Sketchy. "Don't you have anything to do? This isn't a social club! Come on, bip-bip-bip."

"I'm not working today."

"You never show up when you _are_ supposed to be working!" Normal exclaimed loudly. "How come I can never get rid of you when you're not?"

Sketchy decided not to argue, and went to unchain his bike.

"Any more messages you'd like passed on?" Cindy was asking quietly when he got back.

"Yeah, tell her it wouldn't kill her to clean up a bit. She looked a mess on the T.V."

"She'd almost been blown up!" Sketchy hissed disbelievingly.

"Yeah," was the dreamy reply. "That was an improvement." He grinned as he said it, apparently to show he was joking. Sketchy thought it just made him look scary – er than usual. "So if she's still alive," he asked, "does that mean my superstar's okay?"

"Not sure," Sketchy told him. "I spoke to someone there yesterday. He was hurt pretty bad. They were waiting on a doctor who was sneaking in to check him out – I'm not sure how it went."

"Find out for me, will you?"

"Sure." Sketchy found the boss's almost fatherly affection for Alec surprisingly heart-warming; maybe because it was so rare for Normal to display any kind of emotion besides disdain when it came to another human being.

* * *

'Melissa' sat on her motorcycle across the street, backed into a shadowed alley to avoid being spotted either by Sketchy or his new shadows. Half a block down on the right sat an old, dirty, compact hybrid, little different from anything else on the street except for the two people in the front seats.

As soon as Sketchy had left her at the door of her apartment, she'd gone out her window and sprinted quickly back towards the bar to pick up her bike, and gotten back to where Sketchy lived in time to spot him going inside. Just a few minutes after she'd situated herself in a parking lot nearby, the compact she could see now had arrived. A blonde man in a black leather jacket and blue jeans had stepped out of the passenger seat, while his passenger, a fiery-haired woman with a face shaped like the front of a train, remained in the drivers seat.

For a moment 'Melissa' had been worried as the man approached the apartment building. She thought maybe Logan had gotten it wrong, that they'd kill Sketchy right off to scare away anyone who thought to mess with them – but he'd simply stood watching the lit windows Sketchy's apartment. When the lights went out, he'd gone back to the car. Neither he nor his companion spoke a word – not that she would have been able to hear them as far away as she was, though she figured she could read their lips with her enhanced vision – but she found it eerie that they could sit together in that car for so long and not exchange a single word.

When Sketchy left again in the morning, she'd called Logan to let him know about the pair in the car, and waited until they set off after him, deciding it would be easier to avoid being spotted if she were to tail them, rather than Sketchy.

Now, as Sketchy left Jam Pony on his bike and headed for Sector Eight, where the _New World Weekly_ offices were, his two unseen tails followed, the second a short distance behind the first. Sketchy, oblivious to the now-constant jeopardy his life was in, rode quickly, his anger at himself forgotten for the moment, excited at the thought of what he hoped the day would bring.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Uptown Art Gallery**

**4.40 p.m.**

The moment his name had been cleared in regards to Annie's murder, Rita had begun spreading the word that the artist Joshua and the Transgenic from that day in the sewers were one and the same. The violent minds of those who continued to hate Transgenics had forced her to raise security in the gallery, and it had taken all her self-control not to attack Reverend Terry Caldwell with a heavy marble carving of a scene from La Traviata when he showed up outside with crowds of protesters. In the end, however, the majority of the response was positive, with the gallery being more crowded than she had ever imagined it would be.

Two days ago, she'd received a wonderful surprise; a courier truck arriving at the delivery entrance with Joshua No. Two in tow, along with two new paintings. Neither new piece was much like his previous work, though Rita instantly adored both. What made them different was less need for interpretation – the subject matter was clear at first glance.

The first was a storm of black, pale yellow and brilliant green around a rendering of a Manticore bar code, which Rita instantly identified with the girl calling herself Max Guevara, the apparent leader of the Transgenics in Terminal City. The second showed a horde of misty, half-formed people, some of them bizarrely shaped, standing below the flag flying above Terminal City, a great barrier of fog separating them from people seen around the edges of the scene. Unlike the figures forming in the mist, these people were more solid, and themselves formed another barrier; a wall of people holding the misty shapes prisoner, keeping them from taking full physical form.

Since the return of Joshua No. 2 and now No.s 3 and 4 – the other two pieces previously brought by Joshua's 'agent' Alec, completely lacking the vibrancy of his first two, had been dismissed as a bad day for the artist and sold for a pittance – the gallery had featured at least once on almost every news channel in Seattle. Swiftly taking advantage of the spotlight, Rita had set up a donations box at the gallery's entrance, with plans for the proceeds to procure food and other essentials for Terminal City. Of course, she would have to figure out a way to get such supplies into Terminal City unnoticed.

At this moment there a line of people around the block trying to make their way inside the gallery. It had gotten to the point where Rita and a member of staff had begun ousting people who had been sticking around a long time in order to make room for others.

"Excuse me, sir?" Rita approached a well-built blonde man she guessed to be in his early forties who had been there well over an hour and tapped him on the shoulder. "We're trying to make room for other patrons, and I know this is terribly rude of me, but…"

"I'm actually meeting a friend of mine, here, though she seems to be running a little late," he responded, with the bashful smile of a man who was starting to realise he'd been stood up. Rita looked him over, noting his clothes; faded blue jeans, a black silk shirt and black leather jacket. Rita prided herself on her ability to sum people up in a single glance, and instantly pegged him as an aging urban professional trying to con himself into thinking he was much younger than he was – likely waiting on some bimbo young enough to be his daughter. "Maybe just another few minutes?" he asked sweetly.

"Of course," Rita told him, taking pity on him. "But I'm afraid if your friend hasn't arrived in ten minutes time, you'll have to wait for her outside."

"Thank you."

Lydecker scanned the gallery again as the owner walked away. He'd been here since half past three, and had taken the time to study each of Joshua's paintings. Despite having no real interest in art and certainly no real knowledge of the subject, he had to admit it was pretty fascinating work, especially for a simple-minded experiment who had spent half his life hiding in the Manticore basement. The first two, though quite beautiful, Lydecker had to admit to himself he couldn't really understand, but he liked the new ones, especially Joshua's interpretation of the Terminal City situation.

Now it was long past the time he'd specified for the meeting with Max, and there was still no sign of her. He wondered briefly what his 'sponsor' would suggest next, and decided he'd call Cale first to try and find out it Max had given any response other than 'bite me'.

He was just about to leave when he heard a phone ringing. It was coming from his jacket pocket, but it wasn't his phone. Ignoring the scathing looks from all around him, he flipped the phone open. "Lydecker."

"Coffee shop across the street," Cale ordered, and hung up.

It was on the way across the road that he realised just how nervous Max was about his resurfacing. She'd always despised him, but he hadn't thought her afraid of him since she was a child. He instantly spotted a pair of male X-4s in the line outside the gallery, and felt their gaze follow him across the street. He did a minor double-take when he saw who was sitting at one of the tables outside, and had to remind himself that Brin was dead – this must be X5-735, her twin.

Once inside, he spotted Max easily, despite the lengths she'd gone to in order to avoid notice. Her long, dark hair was twisted into pigtails, which, along with a dark green beret, and a pair of thin-framed glasses, went some way to making the overall shape of her face seem somewhat different. An over-sized sweater and long, velvet skirt, both shades of green close to that of the beret, obscured her remarkable figure, and she sat in the back corner of the coffee-shop, one hand obscuring her face further as she leaned on her elbow, pretending to focus on the book in front of her – a random collection of artworks from a variety of periods and styles.

"Any good?" he asked as he sat across from her.

"Not really my thing," Max muttered with disinterest as closed the book and pushed it aside. "I picked it up for Joshua."

"How are you feeling?"

"Bumped around some. Dislocated my shoulder, but it's fine already. Alec was hurt pretty bad," she told him, even though she figured he probably didn't really care about Alec, "but he's bouncing back now too."

"And how is the maestro?" Lydecker asked, glancing over his shoulder to make sure nobody was close enough to hear.

"Didn't realise you knew him."

"He wasn't confined to the basement when I joined the program," he informed her. "When I first arrived in Manticore he was pretty much Sandeman's favourite – him and his brother. Is Isaac in Terminal City, too?"

"He's dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Max looked at him in the eyes for the first time since he'd walked in, and Lydecker felt his throat go dry at the venom in her stare. "Wasn't it _you_ who gave the order to cut Isaac's tongue out?" she hissed.

"No. Between Sandeman's running away and my tenure as commander of the facility, Manticore was in a sort of Limbo. We had an interim director – a young congressman who seemed to have the favour of many of his betters." Clearly, Lydecker had strong feelings about what this congressman must have done to have achieved such power. "He was there two months, and very nearly managed to have the place shut down. Wanted all of you taken out back and shot.

"When he ordered Isaac's tongue be cut out, he made a tape of it, and showed it to the X-3s. Your escape," he told her, "wasn't the first attempt, though it was the first successful one. When a pair of sick X-3s tried to bust out of the infirmary, he had them both executed, dropped the bodies in front of their squad members, then played the tape of Isaac having his tongue cut out, as a lesson to anyone who might consider setting so much as one toe out of line from there on."

"Sounds like a real charmer," Max muttered as a waitress approached with a pair of lattés she'd ordered for them both before Lydecker arrived. She took a sip of hers as the girl departed. It was probably the best coffee she'd tasted in years, she noted as she looked around. The place itself was probably one of the few buildings in Seattle that was testament to the times before the Pulse; spotlessly clean and well-decorated, with all the employees in their uniforms and matching aprons. It had once been part of an old chain of stores, a sort of small-time Starbucks, but now it was owned by the same type of people who owned the gallery and most of the surrounding area – the filthy-rich who had managed to stay rich despite the Pulse, and who now liked to live in constant denial that it had ever happened.

"Is he still around?" she asked idly. "I think Joshua would appreciate a chance to air his grievances face-to-face."

"You've actually seen quite a lot of him lately," Lydecker told her, "though not face-to-face. That meeting probably wouldn't have gone very well for either side." He left Max to wonder who he was talking about for a moment while took some of his own coffee. "James McKinley," he announced at last, as Max was starting to look like she might jab her fingers in his eyes if he didn't spit it out.

Max thought about everything she'd heard from McKinley over the past few months. Ever since the checkpoint shooting with the Nomlie, he'd been the loudest voice in favour of wiping out her kind. "Figures," she muttered. "No wonder he and White got along so well at all those hearings. Logan checked McKinley out, but never found anything weird."

"The gaps in his history were filled in well," Lydecker admitted. "Even better than I could have done it. During the couple of months he was in Wyoming, he's documented as having been at a United Nations summit, then a troop inspection in Iraq, along with talks with Iranian diplomats about their nuclear policy. They got minutes from meetings that never happened, photos of him in Baghdad with the Marines - all of which were taken in front of green screens by the DOD - and quotes of things he never said at a U.N. summit he didn't attend."

"Must've been a pretty expensive magic trick, arranging all of that."

"I'd imagine so. And the downside is, you'll never be able to prove he'd heard word one about Manticore before the rest of the world did. As far as I remember, the only time any Transgenics saw him was when he made that little appearance in front of the X-3s. Ask a couple of the main X-3 squadron, if any are in Terminal City. Fifteen years and fifty pounds leaves a mark on a man's appearance, and I don't think they ever heard his name, but I bet they'll remember."

Both were silent for a moment as Lydecker allowed Max to process this. It wasn't exactly a shock that a guy like McKinley had known about Manticore, but the nature of his involvement was a lot to stomach. As Max considered it, even Lydecker seemed like a saint by comparison.

"There's more," he told when the quiet started to become uncomfortable. "I take it Logan got wind of what happened to me after we last spoke?"

"Yeah. A friend of his sent copies of the photos in your car. I've been to the grave site. Found out a lot more than I care to know about Manticore's origins."

"Then you know how the guy who started it all got _his_ start; that he was part of this cult."

"So is Ames White – Sandeman's son, by the way."

Lydecker's eyes widened a little at this. "That I didn't know," he confessed. "I knew Sandeman had kids, but I'd never met either of them back when I knew him. I guess White was still using the family name back then. But I got one for you. McKinley. He's one of them too."

"How'd you find _that_ out?"

"That's for another time. What's important now is that the good Senator is the most public face of the Familiars we know about. I don't have the resources to have him checked out, but maybe you do. Like I said, his past is one great lie after another, but maybe if you scrape off a few layers of crap, you'll find something you can use."

Knowing there was little point trying to make him talk – even if she could get him out of here quietly and drag him some place quiet, Deck had proven once before that torture wasn't the way to go with him. She didn't press the question of how he knew so much all of a sudden. "Do you know what happened to him?" she asked instead. "Sandeman. I got some questions, and he's probably the only guy who can answer them."

"Until recently I figured him for dead. I always thought it was our employers who forced him out of Manticore and killed him, but now it looks like maybe it was his own people. This cult."

"They call themselves Familiars."

"I tried to find out more about him when I started looking into his… unusual family. What little I found suggests that he was alive as recently as six years ago."

"More recently than that," Max told him slowly. "I think Renfro was in contact with him." She ignored the expression on Lydecker's face, though she did briefly wondered if she should be telling him this at all. "She was shot the night Manticore burned. Jumped in front of a rifle to save my life. She told me I needed to find Sandeman. Something about me being 'the one'. I don't know what that means, but whatever it is, the Familiars are pretty scared. Like I'm the spanner in the works for whatever they have planned."

"Well, maybe letting Joshua loose on McKinley might be an idea worth considering if you can't turn anything up another way," Lydecker suggested. At that moment, he felt his own phone vibrate in his pocket, but ignored it.

"I'll hold that idea in reserve." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "I gotta take off. Keep the phone; I'll call if I need to get in touch. You can find me through Logan."

"There is one more thing," Lydecker told her hesitantly. "People like me aren't supposed to get second chances. But it seems I've gotten one anyway. A chance to repair some of the damage I caused, if not make up for it. I don't expect you to trust me." He nodded in 735's direction. "And clearly you don't, or you wouldn't have brought so much heavy security. But I'm here if you need anything."

"Don't expect much," she told him. "Second chances are one thing, but you've got a helluva lot of damage to repair." She glanced out at 735 and the others. "They'll stick around for ten minutes. You'll have to wait until they're gone before you leave." She picked up her book and stood up, then paused for a moment as if to say something else, but in the end lowered her eyes and turned away, leaving without another word.

Once she was gone, Lydecker reached for the phone that had been placed in his pocket in the gallery, and took it apart. He examined it thoroughly for tracers, however minute, and smiled a little to himself as 735 watched him do this through the window. Finding nothing, he pulled a small, factory-wrapped chip from inside his jacket, and attached it to the SIM card – a scrambler, in case of any signal surveillance Cale might employ to track him instead of physical tracers.

By the time he was done, Brin's twin and those across the street had left, and he noticed an X-6 female departing from another direction, too. Once he was sure there was nobody else watching, he took his other phone from his pocket, and checked the text he'd received while talking with Max.

Two words appeared onscreen. 'It's done.'


	10. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

It took quite a while – and quite a lot of what seemed like very grudging help from Ben - for Sketchy to find what he was looking for. There were a lot more environmental cleanup groups in Seattle than Sketchy had expected, and it turned out his idea of starting with the government-sponsored ones had been a big mistake, totalling three wasted hours. In the end it was an independent company, RCF Demolition & Disposal, who had only branched into strictly environmental projects within the past two years, where he found what he had been looking for.

He saw that for the two years RCF had been focused on environmental work, they'd had authority over a condemned apartment building in Sector Two. Of every project the company had running, this one had been on their books the longest, and nothing seemed to be happening there. The building was simple cordoned off, and no work was being done that anybody knew about.

As Sketchy packed up his things, Mitchell excused himself to make a call, saying he wouldn't be able to go with, given the rest of his workload. He slapped Sketchy lightly on the shoulder as he walked away. Once he was out of sight, he dialled the number of the team who had been assigned to follow the younger man.

"Sterritt," a woman's voice answered. He didn't know her personally, but she had a good reputation as a fighter, and had been briefly considered for joining the Phalanx team Mitchell himself belonged to - an honour which a very select few were granted had they not been bred specifically for that purpose of leading the warrior line.

"This is Ben Mitchell. He's headed for the burial site in Sector Two. We still have people there on and off; I'll contact them, tell them to clean up and clear out."

"Is he marked?" Sterritt enquired.

"Yes. Relaying the frequency now."

"Good. We're attempting to isolate his cell frequency. Might not work until there are less people around him, but the tracer signal is good."

"You'll have to get it soon. It's a soluble tracker on his clothing," he lectured. "It won't last five minutes in the rain. If we miss this we miss forty-eight hours of surveillance; he's at the messenger service all day tomorrow, so I won't get a chance to mark him again until Thursday."

"We can always pick his pocket and mark the phone directly before replacing it – which, for the record, you could have done yourself," Sterritt pointed out insolently.

"There was no opportunity."

"Never mind. We have the signal."

* * *

Sketchy's phone rang as he exited the building. He didn't recognise the number on the display, and tripped over his own feet when he heard the voice on the other end.

"Last night was fun," Melissa told him by way of greeting. As she watched, she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when Sketchy stumbled and collided with an old woman on the street.

"Hi!" Sketchy squeaked as he gestured an apology to the woman he'd nearly floored, who stomped off muttering angrily to herself.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, managing to bring his voice back to a tone humans could hear. "I... I thought I'd forgotten to give you my number."

"You left your phone on the table when you went to the bathroom last night. I grabbed your number before you came back," she lied. She had, in fact, gotten the number from Logan. "I was wondering if you wanted to hook up and grab something to eat."

"Uh…" Sketchy groaned, delighted that she'd called him but hating her timing, "I'm actually pretty busy today. I'm following up on a lead for a story I'm working on, and an old friend of mine might be passing through the city tonight. I haven't seen her in a while, so a couple of us were gonna get together at a friends' apartment."

"How about tomorrow?"

"Sure!" Sketchy considered for a moment whether or not he should even ask his next question, thinking what Logan might say if he thought Sketchy was blabbing to everyone who'd listen about this story. "Hey, if you're not busy now, how about you come with me to check out this lead? I'm not even sure if where I'm going to is the right place, but if it is, it could be a pretty interesting trip. It might be sort of dangerous, though," he warned. "If anyone's standing guard, we might have to bolt."

"I'm pretty quick on my feet," Melissa assured him.

* * *

"This friend he's expecting a visit from – an Eyes Only contact?" Sterritt wondered aloud.

"Or 452," her partner, Jeremiah Bors, suggested eagerly. "They were good enough friends that he was one of those who went with her to Terminal City when they ran from Jam Pony." A team of analysts had confirmed that morning that 452 had indeed been breathing on the news cam video following the bombing. The awkward position in which she'd been lying coupled with the distance of the chopper from which the footage was recorded had made it to tell, and the media couldn't be bothered going to such lengths. Their people in the DOD had passed on the word that at least one government agency was aware of the deception, but weren't about to show their hand. There was still no word on whether or not 494 had been alive on the footage, but nobody was nearly as worried about him as they were about 452.

"I wouldn't get too excited," Sterritt cautioned. "Even if it is 452, we won't be the ones to go after her." Sterritt didn't think much of her new partner. Apparently she was supposed to be a role model, and her superiors expected her calm to rub off on him, but Cora Sterritt had no love for training youths, and still wondered how a man who could barely sit still for ten minutes and was known for having a hair-trigger temper had even survived his training.

"Inform the Conclave," she ordered. "Likely intel on an Eyes Only contact meet, possibly X5-452. Request two teams be placed on standby, one surveillance, one tactical assault just in case. Location unknown; we'll keep the teams posted."

* * *

The condemned building looked like it had once been an expensive apartment block, but it had been listed as condemned since before the days of the Pulse. It had certainly seen even more damage since then – it looked like it had been victim to every kind of natural disaster there was.

"Do you really think there's anything to this?" Melissa asked as they entered. "I mean, a dawn-of-time super-soldier project doesn't exactly scream 'true story'.

"Well, a year ago everyone thought the stories about Manticore were crap," Sketchy pointed out. "Look how that turned out."

"Good point, I guess."

She looked back over her shoulder to where Sketchy's other shadows had parked, just outside the entrance to a small market at the end of the block. There was no sign of them leaving the car.

* * *

Mere seconds after the pair crept inside, Sterritt saw the two guards emerging from a nearby alleyway, each man carrying a large gym bag, and one nursing what she could tell even from this distance was a badly injured hand. She didn't vocalise her disgust at what she knew to be in the bags, but Bors certainly did.

"Defiling our heritage to hide from the throwbacks," he growled. "We should just walk in there and tear them to pieces. Nobody would ever be stupid enough to pick up the story again once they heard what happened to the last guy who tried."

"There'll always be someone dumb enough to pick up where the last idiot left off," Sterritt told him in an exasperated tone. "Besides, if Cale wants to, he can always just run the story himself. He's doing it this way to piss us off, and to get us to show our cards. If we're patient, we can get to Cale through _that_ idiot," she nodded towards Sketchy just as he disappeared from sight, "before anything truly threatening gets out, and Cale gets us 452." Handing her laptop to him, she said, "The girl could be his security; a plant by Eyes Only. Check the Manticore database; see if she's in there."

* * *

Tip-toeing downstairs, Sketchy was more than a little surprised to find no more than an empty guardhouse, and not a sole in sight. Following calmly and silently behind, Melissa noted a trail of recent footprints indicating that someone had definitely been here, and judged by the pattern that they had left in a hurry. She didn't mention this to Sketchy for fear it may alarm him without cause, but he realised on his own that they'd only just missed the guards when he peeked into the guardhouse and saw that the coffee machine was still on. Glancing around anxiously, he suggested that they might still be around.

"I doubt it," Melissa told him. "If they were, I don't think they'd let us just walk in here. The building's condemned," she pointed out matter-of-factly. "That's all the reason they'd need to tell us to take a hike."

"Then why not stick around?"

"I don't know," she lied. It was a dangerous game she and Logan were playing with Sketchy's life, with her as his only protection. She thought about the two Familiars outside, and the guards - also two, she knew from the footprints – who for all she knew were only right outside in the alley. Four Familiars. She strained her ears for some sign that the guards were still close by, but found nothing. Four Familiars, and she didn't know for sure that she could even take on one in a fight. She'd have to talk to Logan about a way of evening the odds if it came to that.

Pretending to be looking for signs of the evidence Sketchy wanted, she split her attention between the stairs leading down from the main building, and the exit at the back. The door was slightly ajar, and she could make out the shadows of another flight of steps leading up to street level. There was no sign of any human shadows. It seemed the Familiars were content to let this play out for the time being.

"I think this is it," Sketchy announced excitedly. He was standing at the edge of a large, roughly round dirt pit. It looked to be about twelve feet deep. As Sketchy produced a small flashlight and began shining it around the pit, Melissa joined him and peered over the edge, examining the vertical walls.

"Lots of stuff to grab onto," she noted. "Climbing out should be pretty easy." She didn't mention that she could easily jump out from the bottom. She turned and shimmied backwards, hanging over the edge. "Can you lower me down?" She held onto his wrist as he held hers, and he lowered her as far as he could, until her feet were just a short distance above the bottom. Once she let go, Sketchy himself climbed most of the way before dropping.

The flashlight again in hand, Sketchy ran the beam all around the walls and ground, but saw nothing. His face fell a little at the thought that maybe this wasn't the right place, thinking that maybe the guard was just an ordinary guy who'd gone for a bathroom break, and would return any minute, yelling as he showed them the door. Then, as he shone the beam slowly around for a second time, he noticed something that stood out.

A large stone pillar at the far end of the pit had been smashed at about head height. Sketchy took the photos from his backpack, and flipped to the one that showed the painted Manticore symbol. It wasn't easy to tell from the photo, but Sketchy guessed the ruined section of stone would have been about the size of the painting. On the ground beneath it, however, was nothing.

"Looks like they cleaned house," he suggested disappointedly. "Must have bagged all the bones and hit this with a sledge hammer."

"Then why is there blood on the stone?"

At first he didn't see what she was talking about, but as he held the flashlight right in front of the damage to the pillar, he could see small spots of blood all around the edge of the shattered surface. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he almost soiled himself when he realised what he was looking at. "Somebody did this with their _fist?!_" he yelped, going pale and taking a step away.

"Looks like the fairy tale is true, after all," Melissa conceded, not bothering to hide her revulsion and worry at the sight in front of them. No Manticore graduate would have been anywhere near strong enough to do this with their bare hands, and she doubted she could have tried without screaming louder than any gun. "Guess they did this in a hurry. Probably didn't have any tools on hand, and a gun would have been heard on the street."

"I think I'm gonna puke," Sketchy groaned. Tearing his eyes away from the pillar, he knelt in the dirt to take a closer look at where the remains should have been. Some small pieces of the broken pillar lay on the ground. He picked a few up, looked them over, and discarded most. On one, he saw what at first glance looked like more blood, but as he looked it over more carefully, his disgust at the broken pillar was forgotten as he realised it was paint.

Practically squealing with excitement, he began flicking through more of the small pieces of rubble. In the end, all he found was three more pieces with any paint on them, the largest of them barely the size of a fifty cent piece. With so little, it took a while to match what he found to the photograph. In the end, he matched two of the pieces to different portions of the creature's body, one to a piece of the tail, and the last to what he thought was one of its claws. Melissa let him piece it together himself, holding the flashlight over the stones and the photograph, watching him with an amused smile.

When he was done, Sketchy rummaged through his backpack for his camera, and took two snaps of the pieces, one on their own and another with them placed on the appropriate sections of the original photograph from the file. Righting himself, he also took two shots of the smashed pillar; the second a close-up which he hoped would show clearly show the blood once developed. He also made a mental note to develop these himself and not to say anything to Ben Mitchell, still finding himself unable to trust the other reporter.

While he was taking the photos, Melissa searched his bag and found a foil-wrapped sandwich. Tossing the sandwich itself, she scooped up some small handfuls of dirt from the ground just below the pillar, wrapped it in the foil, and tossed it to Sketchy. "If your boss will spring for lab tests, they could prove that there were human remains here recently," she explained when he enquired, bewildered, as to why his admittedly sorry excuse for a lunch had been replaced by a pile of dirt.

Taking another quick look around to make sure they hadn't missed anything, Sketchy bagged the soil sample along with the painted shards of stone. His camera he slung under his shoulder, and he pocketed the flashlight, then tossed the bag up over the edge of the pit. Melissa move ahead climb up, but paused and turned when Sketchy asked her to hang on for a second.

As he stepped towards her, clearly terrified but determined not to lose his nerve a second time, she cocked her head to one side, regarding him with an amused expression. Then, just as he leaned in, she stepped quickly aside, giggling a little as she kicked his feet out from under him.

Stunned and winded as he hit the ground, Sketchy barely had a chance to wonder what had happened when a hand on his chest prevented him from trying to get up.

"Now where was that bravery last night, when it might really have gotten you somewhere?" Melissa asked with angelic innocence.

At this, every coherent though in Sketchy's mind evaporated, and all he could do was stammer inanely in response. Not giving him time to pull himself together, Melissa turned away, laughing slightly as she began to climb.

Leaping up and practically sprinting up the wall as Melissa disappeared over the top, he found her lying on the ground using his backpack as a pillow. "Took you long enough," she told him idly, the sweet smile still lingering as if she were the most innocent girl in the world.

"If I try that again, am I gonna get my ass kicked?" Sketchy wheezed as he dragged himself over the edge.

"Depends on how well you do," she challenged, clearly enjoying driving him insane.

He decided it was worth the risk of getting knocked back down into the pit. Melissa let out a surprised yelp mixed with a giggle as he grabbed her ankle and pulled her towards him, and wrapped her arms tightly around him as he fiercely kissed her.


	11. Chapter Ten

**Content Warning: Up until now, this story has been at the second-highest content rating. I've now upped the rating to the maximum, and I should warn that this chapter may not be for the squeamish.**

**Please Review**

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Neither Cindy nor any of her friends had seen head or tail of Herbal since he'd packed it in at Jam Pony a year ago. He and his wife had been evicted from their apartment by a greedy slumlord, and the only other place they'd been able to find space in was a little beyond their means. Since then Herbal had been working two crappy jobs instead of one, and had energy for little more than sleep. In addition to the new apartment being clear on the other side of the city and the fact that Herbal was now on a somewhat more restricted Sector Pass than his Jam Pony job had allowed, he'd been like a ghost to his friends, but when Cindy had called him to tell him about Max's possible visit, he'd dropped everything, and had managed to make it across to Sector Nine to meet Cindy when she came out of Jam Pony.

"Thinkin' of comin' back to Jam Pony if I can find a cheap place to stay 'round here," he was saying as they stepped into the elevator at the apartment building.

"And what does your wife have to say about that brainstorm?" Cindy asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing. Ya recall Weenston?" Herbal growled.

"He came back?"

"By _invitation_. This time I thought best to show'm both to the door."

"Good decision," Cindy assured him instantly.

"Soon's I and I find some place closer to home, I'll be back to grovel before the great Reagan Ronald." Though he obviously didn't relish _that_ thought, Cindy could tell he was happy about the idea of coming back to where all his friends were.

"Can always crash here," she suggested. "Had an empty room since Max moved into Terminal City, and no sign of any takers. Probably all afraid I mighta caught some terrible mutant disease from my former roommate. Been pretty much rent-free since a friend of Max's scared off some bent po-pos who came to collect – everyone just chips in enough to keep the walls standing and the water running."

"Sure ya don't mind?" Herbal asked.

Before Cindy could answer, the elevator pinged and the door squeaked open jerkily. Sketchy was in the hallway outside the apartment, and Cindy was furious to see that he wasn't alone. A blonde girl a little taller than herself was with him. Sketchy stood behind her with his arms around her waist, and the pair of them were giggling a little.

Sketchy's grin fell like a hammer when he saw the look on Cindy's face, and was replaced by an appropriate amount of fear.

In the middle of the awkward greetings, Cindy dragged Sketchy away by the collar; both Herbal and Sketchy's new flame had the sense to pretend not to notice, and began chatting amiably.

"Explain, 'fore I pry open these doors and toss you down," Cindy hissed, jerking her head towards the elevator. "Doubtful the fall would kill you, but your new squeeze landing on top of that mouldy potato you got for a head? That just might do it."

Sketchy started blabbering on about how he'd met the girl only the night before, and that he'd invited her to go with him on a field trip for a story he was working on. Neither knowing nor caring about whatever his 'big scoop' might be, she impatiently ordered him to skip to the part where he brought her along to meet his fugitive Transgenic friend who was supposed to be dead.

"Not quite sure how that happened, to be honest," Sketchy muttered, his eyes downcast.

"I do – girl hikes up her skirt for you, and you shoot out your brains along with your…"

The elevator sounded again, followed by the ever-decaying doors screeching as they opened. Max stepped out, dressed more like her usual self in jeans and a leather jacket, the clothes she'd worn for the meeting with Lydecker in a backpack slung over one shoulder. Her face lit up the moment when she saw Cindy, and she rushed forward, almost crushing the other girl in a tearful hug.

* * *

In the parking lot outside the building, Sterritt and Bors sat in their compact. Cora glared silently at her partner, prompting him to calm his voice a little as he relayed the news. "…positive location on X5-452," he repeated. "No visible support. She entered the building alone."

When Bors was done on the phone, a man sitting in another nearby lot in a grey SUV dialled his own. The two men in the back, along with the woman sitting next to him, began a perfunctory check on their equipment, all having a good idea of how the conversation would go.

* * *

The Manticore database had yielded no match for the blonde girl accompanying Theodore, and a check on the Police servers had turned up a brand new I.D. Although unable to confirm her status as a Transgenic, there could be no doubt the girl had been placed by Eyes Only to watch over the reporter. Both Theodore and his girlfriend, however, had been temporarily forgotten about since X5-452 had appeared.

Within twenty minutes of 452's arrival at the apartment building, a large black van had arrived in the parking lot. The side panel slid open and a large woman with a long ponytail dyed somewhere between red and purple stepped out. She wore a long coat to hide the black combat gear and weapons, and left her rifle in the back of the van, crossing the lot in long strides, glancing about a little, and finding nobody watching. Sterritt lowered the window as the woman approached, automatically sizing her up as she did everyone. Sterritt had never seen her before, but the leader of the Phalanx's Alpha Squad wasn't someone whose people could ever fail to recognise once they'd heard her reputation.

"Anything change since your last contact?" Thula asked. Sherritt shook her head in reply. "The Conclave wants this done cleanly," she told them both. "There are too many potential witnesses in the building, so we'll wait until she's out in the open – her probable route back to Terminal City provides us with some likely spots. For now your orders remain the same, but once 452 has been dealt with, nothing Eyes Only or anyone will make much of a difference in their fates."

"Assuming she doesn't humiliate you again," Bors sneered.

Thula leaned down and looked across at Bors. Her face was totally passive, not even her eyes betraying any hint of what was on her mind. Bors met her glare, his own expression not quite as emotionless as hers. Caught between the pair of them, Sterritt didn't bother to apologise for her partner's attitude; despite her respect for the Phalanx, she couldn't consider the Jam Pony debacle to be anything but their worst operation in history, but unlike Bors she wasn't stupid enough to say so aloud.

The silence stretched uncomfortably until broken by a small clatter of metal nearby, as a large black cat knocked the loose lid from a trashcan and began tearing at the plastic bags within. Bors broke his gaze momentarily and glanced out his window at the cat, taking an instant to scan the street and make sure they were still otherwise alone.

When he turned back, Thula was gone from outside Sterritt's window. Before he had a chance to say anything, he found himself showered with shattered glass from behind, and a pair of large, powerful hands clutched his head. A brief gagging sound was followed by the squealing of torn tendons and sinew coupled with a low thump.

Without another word, Thula went back to the van and disappeared inside. Sterritt first looked up at the window of 452's former apartment, making sure nobody had heard the glass breaking, then quickly ran her eyes over the rest of the building's windows and the still-empty street behind her. Once certain nobody had noticed, she sat back and regarded Bors silently. It was an odd sight; his body was slumped forward and slightly away from her, leaning on the corner of the dashboard and the broken window, but his neck had been twisted in such a way that his head hung limply, teetering behind his shoulders upside down, stupidly surprised eyes looking straight at her. Blood trickled from his mouth, running up his cheek, past his nose and into his right eye, just as the other eye began misting over to resemble a doll's eye.

Twisting the knob on the side of Bors' seat, Sterritt pushed the back of the chair until it lay horizontal, and then did the same with the corpse. That would do to keep it out of sight until she could dump it somewhere later – usually the Conclave would want something more than the simple dumping of a Familiar's corpse at the nearest convenient site, on the off-chance that a coroner's tests would turn up any anomalies, but in this case they would be far too concerned with how he'd wound up like this to look very closely at blood work. Thula would of course freely admit to being responsible for his death, daring anyone to try and punish her for it, and it was most unlikely that anyone would care in the least bit about Bors once his killer came forward with 452's equally mangled remains slung over her shoulder.

* * *

Hours later, when Max emerged from the building, she had once again donned the green sweater from earlier on, and had left her hair pig-tailed – along with a pretty decent ID from Dix, it was more than enough to avoid notice by any cops she would encounter at checkpoints on the way back to Sector Seven. For the first time since escaping the Jam Pony siege, she'd managed to put the chaos her life had become from her mind.

Although initially worried at the presence of Sketchy's new girlfriend, her apprehension had quickly dissipated. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something about Melissa had made her drop her guard almost instantly, and within ten minutes and two rounds of something resembling tequila Original Cindy had picked up at a market, everyone was laughing and chatting away as if they'd all known each other for years. Not once, in four hours, had the subject of Manticore or Terminal City been raised. Instead they'd passed the time reminiscing about their servitude at Jam Pony, recalling heavily dramatised stories of the mountainous amounts of already unbelievable stuff that went on there. Sketchy had spent most of the night as red as a tomato, as a good deal of the stories involved him being beat up, strung up, or left without his clothes; sometimes all three.

It turned out that the redesign of Normal's car had been the result of his denying Sky the day off for his birthday; he'd taken the day anyway, and along with a bunch of others who'd stumbled out of Crash after a whole day and night of heavy drinking and bizarre activities – which included a drunken invasion of a lecture on astrophysics at U-Dub – they'd decided the car could do with a touch-up. Once he found out who it was, Normal had been too afraid to fire them for fear of what they might do next.

Sketchy and Melissa came out alongside Max, Herbal having lost consciousness on the couch upstairs. The goodbyes at the door had almost brought Max to tears again as the thought of going back hit her, and she wondered briefly when, if ever, she might see her friends again. All in all, however, she was still much happier than she'd been for a long time, and promised to drop in again the next time she was outside of Sector Seven.

Exchanging a couple of quick hugs with Sketchy and Melissa, Max went around to the back of the building where her bike was. The booze having run out much earlier than expected, she'd had a few cups of coffee, and was already well clear of the effects of the alcohol, so riding wouldn't be a problem.

When she was halfway down the street, the black van began to follow. Confident of the route she would take, and when they would have their opening, the driver kept enough distance not to be noticed. Wrapped up in his own task, he never noticed his own tail, the grey SUV, and neither did the rest of the team, busy running final checks on their weapons and equipment.

The first checkpoint Max had to pass through was a good distance away, on a relatively empty stretch of road. Apart from the cops, the only people nearby would be drunken bums sleeping on corners and in alleys, and maybe a streetwalker or two. This presented the best time for an ambush.

"We hit her when she's stopped at the checkpoint," Thula told her team, not for the first time. "No survivors. Kill everything. Cops. Hookers. Dogs. _Everything_. Sorsha," she told the other woman on the team, "when it's done, grab the tapes from the guard house and smash all the equipment. One of our people in the Municipal Police Force is making sure there won't be any hoverdrones nearby. Once she's down, keep shooting until she's splattered all over the walls – but let's try and keep her face intact. I'm thinking of having her head stuffed."

About a kilometre before the checkpoint, the road passed briefly through the remains of what had once been a massive public arboretum. An eventually abandoned development project had stripped the land of most of the trees and plant life, and empty fields of tall grass stood on both sides of the road.

"Just over a minute to the checkpoint," the driver announced.

"Start to close the gap," Thula ordered, but the instant the words were out of her mouth, a loud pop warned of a tyre blow-out. In the middle of a sharp turn, the driver struggled to keep steady, but to no avail. This time they heard the sound of the van itself being hit a couple of times before the second tyre went. With a hop, a skip, and jump, the vehicle careered into the grass. The first SUV had now been joined by a second, and from both vehicles a storm of automatic weapons fire was unleashed. Although the weapons themselves were silenced, the sound of the van jumping and rolling across the grass combined with the repeated pings and smashes of gunfire blazing through the van, the equipment, and the second-most senior member of Thula's team, could easily have woken the dead.

By the time the van finally came to a halt, they were all scrambling to their feet, save the driver, who had gone through the windscreen. Thula's second, Jonas, grunted angrily as he inspected two wounds – one in left butt cheek, the other a few inches higher, no doubt costing him a kidney. In typical Phalanx fashion, all the injuries served to do was piss him off, and he kicked the back doors open and was first through, with his weapon raised, searching for the attackers.

The two vehicles had sped right past the totalled van, killing their engines at some point in the distance, unseen through the long grass. As Thula and the other three members of her squad poured out after Jonas, they saw their driver picking himself up, shaking his head roughly. He began to quickly make his way towards them. Before he got halfway there, the unmistakable clap and whistle of a long distance rifle came from somewhere in the distance. Nobody saw him take the hit, but he fell face down in the grass, and made no move to stand again.

The rest of the team all hit the deck, and Thula issued the silent command to follow her. The shot had come from behind them, which told them that the two cars weren't the only problem. They crawled to where the driver had gone down, and Thula turned him over. Confused at not seeing any wound, which should have been immediately apparent if it was enough to take down one of her people, she then noticed the massive pool of blood underneath his head. The bullet had gone through his open mouth.

"Spread out," Thula ordered. "I doubt there are enough of them to contain an area this large, so everyone just punch a hole wherever you can, and rendezvous at the sector eight secondary safe house in one hour. Once you're out of the thick of this, try to take one of them alive. I want to know who's itching to die so badly they'd tried to do this to _us_."

The order was punctuated by the gunfire beginning anew. Everyone dashed in a different direction. The low visibility didn't do much to hide their attackers; it seemed that at one in the morning in the middle of nowhere, they weren't as concerned as they had seemed before about keeping their actions quiet. Before the sound of shots coming from her own people began, Thula made out the distinct sounds of at least six different kinds of rifles, all of which she identified as being high-quality, expensive weapons. They may have been stupid, she told herself, but they certainly had deep pockets. That ruled out Transgenics, she mused, at the same time ducking and rolling as the rush of air by her cheek told her she'd almost had her head blown off. She fired wildly, knowing their was little chance of hitting anything, but trusting the spray of bullets would instil enough caution in those nearby to give her a chance to get further ahead of them and try to find a spot where she might get a good look at the scene around her.

After a moment she tripped over something the ground, but kept running even as she looked hurriedly over her shoulder to see that it was Jonas, already dead from a series of chest wounds. Movement nearby made her raise her weapon, but she stopped with her finger on the trigger as she realised it was Sorsha. The other woman didn't notice her, running backwards as she emptied an entire magazine into thin air before continuing.

Abruptly, Thula noticed that things had gone much quieter all of a sudden; she knew this was a bad sign, and wondered how many remained. When the silence stretched for almost thirty seconds as she ran, getting just ahead of Sorsha, who almost shot her in the back in surprise at her sudden appearance, she knew there was nobody else.

She was dimly aware of the squelching sound of brains in a blender as her last team member fell, and didn't register the sight at all as she turned and fired another burst into the darkness. A grunt and the dull thud of a body dropping in mid-sprint and skidding in the dirt announced her first kill. The almost total darkness made her second easier; she knelt in the long grass and tossed the empty rifle aside. One of her attackers appeared not two feet away, a highly polished G3AZ pointed towards the heavy _thunk_ of the gun landing in the earth. She stepped calmly behind him, and had his weapon in her hand and had set off again before his broken corpse even hit the ground.

The beam of light in her eyes blinded her; instinctively she leapt aside fired in full auto. The light exploded, but before Thula could scramble to her feet, she lost total control of her body, as at the very instant a round from a Colt .45 tore right through her Kevlar vest, two Tazers hit her in the back. Though neither the bullet nor the electricity caused her any pain, she found herself completely unable to stand, or even crawl away.

Finally the shocks subsided, but her situation had only worsened. Four men and two women stood all around her, all keeping a respectful distance having seen what she'd done to one of their companions a moment ago. Armed with various assault rifles, each of them also carried a sidearm, and most had P-90s slung over their shoulders. Balaclavas and NVGs obscured every face.

Thula glanced down at the wound just above her left breast. Even in the darkness it looked pretty nasty, but she calmly assessed that if she could somehow escape, she could easily make it back to her own people and get it treated. What really hurt was the thought that she had failed yet again in killing 452.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a car door slamming on the nearby road. None of the gunmen moved an inch, and she knew that the new arrival was not just a passer-by who'd seen the flipped van and wanted to make sure nobody was hurt.

The newcomer walked slowly towards them and stepped between two of the gunmen. Fury erupted all over Thula's face when she saw who it was.

"I don't believe we've met," he told her. He lightly gripped an Mk.23 Socom pistol in his right hand, but didn't bother to point it at her, apparently secure in his opinion that he was looking at a thoroughly defeated opponent, not worth even the slightest shred of unease. Smiling at her reaction to seeing him, he announced unnecessarily, "I'm Donald Lydecker."

"Fucking reject!" Thula screamed. Her rage boiling over, she forced herself up with lightning speed. The stolen weapon beside her forgotten, she lunged at him.

Surprised by how quickly she leapt up and closed the distance, Lydecker barely had time to raise the weapon. None of the others fired for fear of hitting him instead of her. The pistol was only inches from her when he fired, and she collapsed against him as blood and muscle was torn to shreds by the bullet rocketing through the side of her neck.

Lydecker was knocked off his feet, an accidental squeeze of the trigger as she landed atop him sending an additional round to impact the ground next to one of his own people's feet, who hopped quickly aside, exhaling slightly in relief at not being clipped. Forcing Thula off him, he stood and turned her onto her back with his boot. She stared up at him, immobilized by the blood loss. Lydecker himself was covered in blood, and a pool of it spread all over the ground beneath her, confirming a severe arterial impact.

One last feeble attempt to rise sapped the last of her strength, and confirmed what she already knew despite only a dull physical sensation, as if her body were turning to lead, refusing to do what she commanded it to do. Wondering briefly what a throwback would feel in such condition, how much pain they'd be going through, she regarded Lydecker venomously. "…never should have been born," she croaked weakly.

"I'm well aware of popular opinion surrounding my existence," Lydecker told her. Casually blasting her twice in the face with the large handgun, he added, "You'll forgive me if I happen to disagree."


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

Unaware of the chaos that had followed her home, Max managed to slip through the all checkpoints along the way without being recognised. Lifting a slab in the garden outside the small Sector Seven house, she replaced the key once the door was open, and wheeled her bike in with her. The house was pretty bare, with no decorations of any kind and Spartan furniture, it's only real function being an easy way for those who needed it to slip in and out of Terminal City, but occasionally a couple of the people living inside the fences might come up here for a little peace and quiet.

The house was empty as Max passed through, as was the tunnel beyond. Once inside Terminal City again, she took notice of how quickly the new security cameras were being set up. In the half day she'd been gone, they seemed to have gotten around most of the perimeter. Although like everything else in Terminal City , the cameras were usually pieced together from old parts, Max had no doubt they worked as well as any standard system.

Inside the Command Centre – over the main entrance to which, Max noticed, somebody had actually hung a cardboard sign with 'Command Centre, Authorised Mutants Only' scribbled on it in black marker – Dix was working on the feeds for the new cameras.

"The cameras themselves were easy enough, we were able to salvage them from all the old businesses," he told her. "But there aren't enough screens to go around, so we're linking the feeds. Some we'll see in split-screen, and any of the monitors that are too small to be divided up into a bunch of separate pictures, we're rotating the feeds, you know, this camera one minute, that one the next."

"Anything on Lydecker?"

"We were able to map out his movements from the security feeds he's been showing up on around the city. Tracked him to an apartment building not far outside here. Good view of the crowds outside, likely place to catch any action as it happened. Logan sent a couple of his Eyes Only guys to check it out.

"Most of the apartments were just full of squatters, but we found the one he was in. And the only reason we know it's the right one is that the whole place was wiped down. No prints, no fibres. Way too clean for such a dump."

"He told Logan he saw the bombing," Max mused, "and I don't think he meant on the news. Odds are he was there as late as yesterday morning."

"Two days ago, now," Dix pointed out, checking a clock on the wall. It was two-thirty in the morning.

Although she doubted Lydecker would be found again unless he wanted to be, Max gave the order to keep up the search, just in case he became a problem.

"Uhh…" Dix hesitated, "we asked around to see if anybody remembered the guy who was running Manticore between Sandeman taking off and Lydecker taking over. Turns out we got a couple of X-3s from their main squad. They all say he looks pretty different, but they agree it's definitely the same guy – McKinley – who had the runaways executed and, well, you know."

"Kinda makes you wonder where Lydecker gets his information," said Mole, appearing from behind one of the computer monitors. "I hate computers," he groused.

"Looking for love?" Max asked.

"Trying to see if I could order some cigars. Everything's gone to hell since the Pulse. Most of the big suppliers survived it, even if they're too afraid to ever set up shop Stateside again, but apparently they'll deliver – not that I'll ever know. Y'got any idea how much they want for anything worth lighting?" He patted through his pockets and pulled out a stogie. "My last one. Things are gonna get ugly around here real soon," he warned. Max couldn't be entirely sure he was joking.

"There's something else," Dix told her. "I know you wanted to tell him yourself, but Joshua walked in when we were talking to the X-3s. He heard pretty much everything before I realized he was there."

Just as she reached the Infirmary, Joshua emerged from within. He greeted Max as cheerfully as ever, but wouldn't meet her eyes. When she handed him the book she'd picked up in the city, he began flicking through it distractedly, not really seeing any of the artwork. He hugged her softly, thanking her for the gift, and then quietly left.

"Nothing for me?" Alec appeared behind her, fully clothed, his hair arranged to hide the remnants of the doctors work.

"You're supposed to be on bed-rest," she chided.

"I was. All day. We're not designed to sit on our asses. At least I'm not. I get bored too easy." Looking her over briefly, he seemed happy with what he saw. "Glad you didn't come right back?"

"Yeah. It was good seeing them again. Sketchy's got a new girl," she announced. "WAY out of his league, but she seems to like him."

"Well, if so many girls weren't willing to slum it a little, most guys would spend their whole lives alone," Alec chuckled.

Max had to laugh at this. "And of course, you don't include yourself in that group of guys," she teased as she began walking.

"Well, even I might have to cut back a _little_," he shrugged innocently.

Smiling a little before remembering about McKinley, she asked, "How's Joshua?"

"Hard to tell," Alec said after a moment. "His whole life seems to be about revenge lately – first White, now McKinley. He just spent the past hour sitting in there talking to me, and never said a word about it. I only knew 'cos Mole had already told me."

"Revenge just might be in the cards. This stalemate can't last forever."

"Well, if this ever comes to a fight, just make sure to give him a shot at McKinley or White. Both if you can. Maybe not the kind of therapy any shrink would support, but it could be the best thing for him." Looking around, Alec asked, "Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"I'm gonna head up to the house. Get away from the noise, get some sleep."

"You seem to be doing that a lot, lately," he noted. "Sleeping. Aren't you one of the lucky few who doesn't need to do that?"

"Well, I used to spend my nights either breaking into places, hanging at Crash, or riding my bike all over the city," she reminded him. "Can't really do any of those things lately. Unless you're so bored you wanna build a bar."

"Yeah, right," came the chuckled reply. "If the Ordinaries ever start sending in those supplies the Mayor was talking about, I'll tell them to make sure beer and pool tables are at the top of the list."

"Don't forget cigars for Mole," Max smiled. "He might just kill us all pretty soon."

"Well that makes a nice change," Alec joked. "Lately the whole place has been worried that _you_ were gonna snap and kill us all. Mole isn't nearly so scary. Of course, there are _other_ things you could do instead of letting all your spare time go to waste."

It took a moment before Max registered what he'd just said. Lamely trying to counter for the obviously scandalized look she must have had on her face, and Alec's laughter at that same look, she slapped him lightly on the back of the head. "So, is the brain damage permanent?"

"Cute. I'm fine, by the way. The doc came back, patched up the holes with the some sort of prosthetic. Apparently in a few weeks it'll have meshed well enough with the bone that even an X-ray wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Stuff looked like clay."

"Great, just what you need – _more _rocks in your head!"

Feigning a grievous wound at her humor, Alec wished her good night as they reached the tunnel, and began making his way back towards the Command Centre. Max stood watching him curiously for a moment before disappearing inside.

Once at the end of the tunnel and inside the house, she made her way upstairs. Inside the one furnished bedroom was a single bed with a thin blanket. She kicked her shoes off and lay atop it, not bothering to take her clothes off or get under the blanket. She noticed an old book apparently left behind by whomever the last person to come here instead of sleeping inside Terminal City. It was so careworn that the front cover was gone, the back one unreadable.

Doubting she'd actually fall asleep for some time, she picked up and began reading, and was unconscious before she'd reached the end of the first page.

_**Next Morning**_

Melissa brushed past Sketchy, stepping into the shower as he was stepping out, and was pulling him back in with her when Sketchy's phone started ringing. Groaning in frustration at the timing, Sketchy slumped his shoulders and went to answer it.

Logan skipped right over any greetings. "There's another package for you at the house," he told him. "I know you'd have gone by to check anyway, but I needed to talk to you about this one."

"Is something wrong?"

"I want you to bring this one straight your editor."

"Yeah," Sketchy reminded him, "that's what I did with the last one, just like the note said."

"I know, but this one you show _only_ to your editor," Logan ordered strictly. "Don't let Ben Mitchell see it. He's dangerous – if he finds out about this, he'll try to stop the story from running."

Sketchy felt his throat run a little dry at the warning. "How dangerous, exactly?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"Don't worry," Logan assured him. "You're protected. But if word gets about this to the wrong people in advance, they could make a mess trying to control the flow of information. People might get hurt."

"Okay. I'll make sure nobody else knows about it. But listen, man; there's something you should know – my editor? She knows all about you. I tried to tell you when you called before…"

"What _exactly_ does she know?"

"Everything, I think. She was prepping a story exposing you as Eyes Only when I brought her this one. She's promised to put that aside for now, but there's no way to be sure she'll do that."

Logan fell silent for a while, and Sketchy was about to ask him if he was still there when he spoke up again. "I doubt she'll run that story yet, but it doesn't really matter if she does," he said. "They can't find me anyway, and there isn't really anyone left for them to go after in order to get to me. My family would probably wind up _leading_ the effort to lock me up for the rest of my life, and nobody who knows my ex-wife would bother trying to use her as a hostage. Even Max is well out of harms way, more for everyone thinking she's already dead than because she's in Terminal City."

"You're not a little worried about the whole world finding out it's you?"

"Can't really keep the secret much longer anyway. The bad guys already know – the rest of the world finding out would be a pretty minor pain in the ass at this point."

It was only after the conversation was over that Sketchy realized what Logan had told him – that he was 'protected'. He didn't get much time to think about what that meant before Melissa called from the bathroom.

"You coming back in here while the water's still hot?"


	13. Chapter Twelve: Sketchy's Media Debut

**MANTICORE CIRCA 5,000 BCE?**

**Dear Reader**

For the past year, _New World Weekly_ has been a primary source of reliable information in regards to Transgenics, the escapees from the government-sponsored Manticore, a super-soldier program based in Gillette, Wyoming. Only one other reporter has been as forthcoming with the public in regards to what the United States government didn't want you to know; the enigmatic cable-hacker, Eyes Only.

In the past, Eyes Only has always worked seemingly alone. He (she?) has never collaborated with any other media, and has never provided information to another source to distribute.

Until now.

_New World Weekly_'s newest reporter, Calvin Simon Theodore, was recently contacted through the Eyes Only Informant Net, and provided with the initial details for what follows. Our own researchers have confirmed as much of this information as possible, and were as shocked as I'm sure you will be by what was discovered.

With new information arriving even as I type this, _New World Weekly_ promises to keep the public abreast of any developments. I would also like to take this moment to thank Eyes Only for his assistance in this matter.

Deborah Litvack

_Editor-in-Chief, Publisher _

_Calvin 'Sketchy' Theodore_ reporting

**On January 19th of last year,** an apparent VA hospital in the Gillette Mountains, Wyoming suffered a fiery explosion. Government news networks all reported on this 'bombing', blaming the activist group S1W for the attack. In the wake of that night, however, it became clear that what we were being told by 'official' sources was a complete fabrication.

As you all now know, it was not a hospital, but a Top Secret genetics lab and military base that burned that night. The cause of the fire is reported by Eyes Only to have been an attempt by those running the base to destroy all evidence of its existence, in order to prevent their impending public exposure. This plan failed, and instead of the hundreds of experimental super-soldiers within being destroyed, many escaped. The majority of those escapees made for the nearest accessible city, Seattle, and have since then taken up residence in Terminal City, Seattle's toxic biohazard zone in Sector Seven.

It seemed until recently that Transgenics may very well be the most bizarre chapter in human history to date. This reporter, however, has seen evidence of things far stranger and more sinister; evidence which points to an ancient precursor to Manticore; a secret society dating back to before the time of the pharaohs; a global movement bent on world domination through the creation of a superhuman army.

The earliest evidence of this shadow society, who refer to themselves as 'Familiars', dates from ancient Mesopotamia circa 5000 BCE, and legends of people who were more than human, and had 'great powers bestowed upon them by the gods'. The only pictorial reference remaining of these legends is a carving of what seems to be a mythical creature, the Manticore, with the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth, and the tail of a serpent or scorpion. Oddly, the first reference to this creature in legend stems from Persia, and is not heard of until roughly 3000 BCE.

Similar stories appear all over the world, the age and location of these references ruling out simple spread of a story via word of mouth, unless America was actually discovered before 2000 BCE, where the same symbol, accompanied by similar stories of a shadowy superhuman elite, are found in Chile, in an Andean tomb.

The story repeats in all corners of the globe, and though the details are often scarce, one tale of Celtic origin claims that the Familiars await a global disaster designed to wipe out the human race, and hand the earth over to the, her 'rightful inheritors'. No mention of this disaster appears in any of the other legends, and, as always, the Celtic myth leaves out the finer points.

The most telling story about these Familiars, and the only one that comes with more evidence than just the symbol, comes from the Kiloma Indians in the early 1800s, where a group of white fur-traders are said to have kidnapped a young tribeswoman and forced her to bear a child for one of their number; a boy of only fourteen and yet described as being almost monstrous in size.

When the child – a boy - emerged from the womb it was already dead, and according to the tale, hideously deformed. The traders forced the girl to bear another child, another boy, and this one they murdered themselves the instant it was born. Then came the third, and this third boy they took with them, but not before the hulking father murdered the girl, apparently breaking her neck with a single punch from behind.

As testament to this macabre tale is a site which, until recently, hid the burial ground in which the remains of the victims laid. As always, the symbol of the Manticore was found with the remains, painted on the wall (_pictured, right). _The bones of the mother and two children (_pictured, below), _the children's skulls disfigured, one of them apparently killed by a massive skull fracture, and the mother's neck shattered, were until recently to be found underneath a condemned building in Sector Two, apparently the site of an environmental cleanup effort.

Acting on this information supplied by Eyes Only through his informant net, I went to the site detailed. Expecting round-the-clock guard, the first thing that stood out was that the site seemed to have been abandoned, and quite recently. Finding a dirt pit underneath the site, I climbed down, and was disappointed to find no remains whatsoever. On the ground at the edge of the pit, however, small fragments of a smashed pillar _(pictured, left) _were to be found. The destruction of the symbol and the removal of the remains was apparently done in quite a hurry given that the cleanup was incomplete. Also, sickeningly, no tools seem to have been used to smash the symbol on the pillar, and still-drying blood could be seen on the wrecked stone. Whoever smashed the pillar did so with their bare hands.

Despite these revelations, I imagine that some sceptics out there might doubt the authenticity of this report… as I'm sure a great many people were somewhat disbelieving when stories about Manticore began circulating. And if this was all we had to share, not believing could easily be understood. However, in collaboration with the Eyes Only Informant Net, this reporter was able to investigate the shadowy depths of Manticore's past, and what we found was nothing short of jaw-dropping.

The origins of Manticore are, officially, as non-existent as Manticore itself. Despite the public revelation of the Department of Defence's illegal genetics program in the courts, it still doesn't exist on government documentation before last year. What did exist however was an SAC (Strategic Air Command) base, which in time was replaced by the VA hospital government officials initially insisted the SW1 destroyed.

In May of 2009, the SAC base was suddenly shut down, and all staff transferred away to various other projects. For an air base, the facility was somewhat lacking, with only four qualified pilots on the entire staff – but quite a few nurses and obstetricians, and teaching specialists - only one of whom, according to her service record, had actually flown anything recently. Captain Maria Hill appears to have been the base commanders' personal chauffeur, frequently flying him to or from meetings in Washington D.C.

Captain Hill, along with many other members of staff from the SAC base, was mysteriously unreachable when called upon to comment.

The base commander at the time of the shutdown was one Donald Lydecker, a highly decorated Army veteran whose career had suddenly ended in dishonourable discharge when he assaulted a senior officer, following a breakdown as a result of his wife's brutal, unsolved murder. His sudden reinstatement and assignment to the Wyoming air base came in late 1996. Having been a Captain at the time of his dismissal, he was immediately promoted to Major following his reinstatement, and by the time of the shutdown in '09, had attained the rank of Colonel.

Officially, the Army's SAC base in the Gillette Mountains was now closed. In fact, the Manticore site this fictional base had been invented to cover up had undergone relocation deeper inside the mountain range. When it reappeared again, official documentation claimed it was a VA hospital. _New_ _World Weekly_ now knows the reason for the overhaul.

In February of that year, three months before the relocation of the Manticore site, a squad of X-series Transgenics made an escape attempt which proved largely successful. Of the sixteen escapees, twelve made it outside the Manticore perimeter and disappeared. _New World Weekly_ can also confirm that one of the escapees was none other than Max Guevara, Manticore designation X5-452, and a good friend of this reporter until her tragic death in a bomb attack two weeks ago.

In the newly formed Manticore base, Colonel Lydecker was pulled from his leadership role and demoted to second in command under Dr. Elizabeth Renfro. No other information could be uncovered about this woman. At this point, it seems that her name itself is merely an alias.

The Colonel's new assignment became the recapture of the X-5 escapees, a mission he pursued ruthlessly for over ten years, until, suddenly, he allied himself with several escapees, and helped co-ordinate an assault on Manticore.

The purpose of the assault was to cripple Manticore's ability to create more soldiers by destroying their DNA lab, but although they were successful in their purpose, Max and another X-5 were recaptured. It was Max's second escape two months later, followed by the public exposure of the Manticore base by Eyes Only, which led to its destruction.

Since then, Colonel Lydecker has disappeared, apparently killed when his car sped out of control and crashed into a river. His body has not been recovered. However, the photographs of the remains from the Kiloma burial site, and the Manticore symbol on the pillar, were found in his car. Colonel Lydecker had begun an investigation into the Familiars when he was killed.

The strangest part of this tale, however, is the man behind Manticore. Colonel Lydecker and his predecessors, for all their intelligence and ability as soldiers, were military personnel with little or no knowledge of what would be required to manufacture a super-soldier. They were jailers, nothing more.

The 'success story' behind Manticore is the man who first devised the method that allowed the first living, breathing supersoldier to be created.

Éric Sandeman was born in Marseilles in 1943. Little could be uncovered about his early life, but recent digging into his past by Eyes Only and _New World Weekly_ discovered that by the mid-1960s, Mr Sandeman was living in Quebec, and giving science lectures in various local colleges, despite his only formal educational qualifications being in the Arts.

By 1983, Sandeman was proving something of a late bloomer in all aspects of his life. Having finally decided to professionalize his scientific work, he was close to a double-doctorate in Biology and Phsyics in MIT. He was also by this time a husband and father, having married a local woman named Emily Rocha two years earlier. His first son, Alain, was born in January of that year.

Following the death of his wife in a car accident that summer, Sandeman suddenly pulled out of his college programs just short of obtaining his doctorates. It seems that having distinguished himself in all his studies – particularly Genetics, and his preliminary work in what would soon evolve into the concept of biotechnology - he had drawn the attention of the U.S government, who were quite eager to hire him. Upon accepting a position with the Department of Defence, The elder Sandeman and his infant son relocated once again. Their new home: Campbell County, Wyoming, near Sandeman's workplace at an SAC base in the Gillette Mountains.

Exactly how Sandeman managed to devise the method that would provide Manticore with its superhuman population remains a mystery, but it seems that by the late 1980s they had succeeded in creating a number of experimental Transgenics. The first among these were part-canine 'brothers'. Isaac, the youngest of the pair, was born less than a year after Joshua. Joshua, known to many from his tragic misadventure in the sewers of Seattle a few months ago, which ended with the horrific death of local girl Annie Fisher at the hands of corrupt government agent Ames White, and also now making quite a name for himself on the art scene, called Sandeman his father, as did his brother Isaac (now deceased).

Over the next couple of years, many more Transgenics were born; some experimental, some designed for specific military purposes such as desert, arctic or even aquatic combat. Not long after last year's mass exodus, fisherman caught what they believed to be a mermaid in their net. Their catch was in fact a Transgenic with quite a lot of fish and dolphin DNA, which, after being captured by a team led by Ames White, escaped and disappeared with a little help from other Transgenics.

In the beginning of the early 90s, Sandeman and company began creating the X-series Transgenics, which, unlike their predecessors, where designed to look human, making them far more useful for conventional warfare and espionage. The first generation of such soldiers were dubbed 'X-2s', and were considered a disaster. What exactly went wrong is unknown, but according to the few residents of Terminal City old enough to remember, the X-2s went insane and had to be destroyed, save four who they kept alive for research purposes.

By 2006, accounts by Joshua and other Transgenics say that Sandeman was running the Manticore facility; and odd situation given his civilian status. He also had another son, Christopher Jean, who had been born in 1989 to his second wife, Marissa Welsh; a DOD Agent who worked with Sandeman at the Wyoming facility. Then suddenly, in autumn of that year, Sandeman abruptly left Manticore, disappearing without trace along with his wife and younger son until a year later, when a new company called Advanced Recombinant Genetics appeared in the centre of what is now Terminal City, with Sandeman at the top of the ladder.

It was after this sudden split from Manticore that Colonel Lydecker was placed in charge of the facility, and so it remained until the breakout in '09. Oddly enough, it was at only a week after the breakout that Sandeman also disappeared. Even though the lease on his Seattle home was maintained – he was even still listed in the phone book – Sandeman and his family were nowhere to be found, except for the elder son, Alain, attending Harvard, where he was studying Political Science and Journalism. Sandeman's company soon crumbled without him, and finally shut down in the aftermath of the Pulse.

Upon escaping from the fire at Manticore last year, Joshua immediately began searching for his 'father'. He found the old Seattle property, but no trace of the former occupant, except the broken top of what he remembered as a cane his father had carried. The top of the cane itself (_pictured, below_) raises yet more questions about the purposes of Manticore.

Was/Is Éric Sandeman a Familiar? Almost certainly. If it's not enough that the Manticore symbol, the symbol of the Familiars, also seemed to be a sort of personal coat of arms for the creator of the first Transgenics, then consider his children. His first son, Alain, was the third child conceived by his first wife, though the only one to come to full term. His second, Christopher, was the third child conceived by his second wife. Their first child miscarried, while the second, a girl, died the day she was born, expiring in the Neonatal ICU in a Wyoming hospital having been born with anencephaly.

Did Sandeman mean for Transgenics to be the 'superhuman army' mentioned in the legends of the Familiars? Perhaps. But if so, how does one explain the identity of the man who, until recently, was leading the governments efforts to round up and destroy the Manticore escapees? In June of 2009, one month after the shutdown of Manticore's original front, and four months after the flight of a dozen X-5 Transgenics followed immediately by their creator dropping off the face of the earth, Alain Sandeman legally changed his name to Ames White. Neither his father, half-brother, or stepmother, have been seen in over ten years.

**IN THE SECOND PART OF OUR SPECIAL FEATURE:**

**Why did Sandeman go into hiding?**

**Why do the Familiars despise Transgenics?**

**Who is 'The One'??**

* * *


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**5.22 a.m.**

The first lights of dawn were lazily stretching their way across the distant sky when Lydecker was stopped on the way out the door by the ringing phone in his pocket. It was his own, as opposed to the one slipped into his pocket the day he'd met with Max, and apart from the team he'd been provided with for ops, there was still only one person who had the number.

"Yeah?"

"Have you read the morning papers?"

"Not yet," Lydecker responded, checking his watch and wondering how long his 'sponsor' had been up. "Any particular one I should check out?"

"_New World Weekly _."

"That's not a newspaper," he began contemptuously, "it's a…" but he didn't get to finish, as he'd already been hung up on.

* * *

**7.00 a.m.**

Joshua had volunteered for the morning watch, both in order to let Dix get more than two hours sleep, and because the previous morning, a local a.m. chat show had mentioned that their weekly Arts & Leisure feature would be discussing his paintings.

He changed the channel on one of the numerous screens usually devoted to news coverage from a variety of stations, and found the one he was looking for, but what he found was not Arts & Leisure.

When he saw what it was, and heard the mention of his father, he bolted from the room.

Mole, who had nodded off in a mouldy, tattered old Lazy Boy, jerked awake as Joshua rushed past him. He glanced at the television screen and instantly knew what he was looking at, and why Joshua had run off. "Why don't you just call her cell?" he called half-heartedly over his shoulder, the suggestion useless as by then Joshua was well out of earshot, following Max's scent to the old house down the tunnel.

He looked back at the screen, listening for a moment to the show's presenters, one of whom held the magazine up for the camera to see as her co-host read a copy aloud excerpts a piece of the article. "This was a really bad idea," Mole complained to nobody in particular, habitually patting down his pockets for cigars, even though he knew he'd run out over a week before.

* * *

**8.14 a.m. **

Danaide had suffered quite a few personal defeats over the past year. When Manticore had burned and the Transgenics had escaped, her fellow members of the Conclave had pointed to her previous arguments not to destroy the place years ago, insisting to them all that even Sandeman's work could have its benefits. At the time, just after Sandeman had left Manticore, and they'd managed to move McKinley into position to monitor the situation and take action if necessary, she'd recently attained acceptance into the Conclave and the rank of Praetor.

Even though her work up until last year had always been highly regarded, there were some who never let her forget that she'd gotten a place in the Conclave largely because of the weight her father's name carried, and lately, that name seemed to be the only thing working in her favour. The escape, the public exposure of the Transgenics themselves, the loss of the Willoughby school whose management she'd been trusted with, the fiasco at Jam Pony, and now this. Within the space of two weeks, their top Phalanx squad had been annihilated on a mission she had deployed them on, and now _this_.

Danaide was dimly aware of the draft as she entered the large, high-ceilinged room, though of course it didn't affect her. Dug deep under a sizeable old place just south of Seattle, from the inside it had a very medieval appearance to it – thick walls fashioned from old dark stone, with ancient-looking iron chandeliers hung high from the ceilings.

Even most of the books on the shelves were antiques. Danaide read mostly histories, and when it came to novels, didn't own anything newer than a first edition Lord of the Rings, believing that it may well have been the last book of the twentieth century that had been worth publishing, though she definitely didn't rank it among her favourites.

Apart from the fact that the chandeliers themselves had light bulbs in them as opposed to candles, the only thing that belied the appearance was a brightly veneered desk with a plastic and steel frame, and the flat screen computer sitting atop it.

She tossed the copy of _New World Weekly_ on the desk. Both Cora Sterritt and Ben Mitchell stood on the other side of the desk, their eyes directly ahead.

Sitting down, she let them stand in silence while she slowly, deliberately picked through her briefcase. Eventually, she grasped two files, placing them side by side on the desk.

"You both have excellent records" she noted. "Each of you distinguished yourselves in school and went on to do the same during your training, and your work since then has been very impressive. You've done your people proud. Explain," she continued quietly, "how is it that given the brilliant work you've both done over the years, neither one of you could effectively keep watch over a stupid junkie and an asswipe of a magazine?!" Her voice rising to a roar at the end of this, she jumped up out of her chair so suddenly that her legs crashed into the desk, almost knocking it over.

Neither of them answered right away, knowing to wait, so she started with Sterritt. "He was on a bicycle, I believe?"

"Yes," said Sterritt, meeting her eyes without the slightest hint of embarrassment. "I kept track of him at all times, except for the incident mentioned I told you about before."

"Then you _didn't _keep track of him at all times," the priestess spat at her. "Bad enough that you bring your partner's corpse back here with his head twisted almost clean off and no explanation other than 'he didn't know when to shut up', you get outrun by an idiot on a bike and we miss out on crucial information as a result! That could have been an opportunity to grab Cale there and then, and we missed it because a throwback who wouldn't know what planet he was living on if he didn't write it on the back of his hand was too much for you to handle."

"I already explained. There was a massive line at a checkpoint, he took a different route and disappeared down a side alley. It was too narrow to follow him in the car, and I would have stood out more than a little if I'd gotten out and ran after him. Even _he_ would have spotted me right away. And as for Bors, I told you…"

The priestess cut her off with a glare and rounded on Mitchell. "You were supposed to control the flow of information," she told him, furious, "keep track of what they knew in case they got a hold of something dangerous. How the hell could you let something like this get past you? They named Sandeman, exposed Ames White – next there'll be lists of names, and they'll be_ begging _the Transgenics leading the hunt to take us out."

"_I _didn't make the decision to allow this story to run," he countered viciously. "You were the one who was willing to gamble everything on this just for a chance to save your precious reputation!"

Danaide never even got the chance to recover from the shock of being spoken to in this manner by a subordinate. A spitting sound came from the doorway nobody realised had been open, followed immediately by another, then, after the briefest of pauses, the third. Mitchell turned his head to avoid the spray as the third slug zipped through her head, entering just in front of her right ear, liquefying her eyeball as it emerged, leaving an empty socket spewing blood and pus. At first, Mitchell thought she wasn't actually going to fall over. Her mouth twitched a little, as if she were trying to speak but couldn't quite remember how. Eventually she crumpled into a heap, face down on the floor.

"True," McKinley admitted, disengaging the safety, removing the silencer, and placing the small pistol in his pocket, "but after the past year, we really should have known better than to accept her recommendation." Casually crossing the room, he kicked the corpse over and looked down at it. "We really have become far too tolerant of failure."

Sterritt suddenly felt her feet leave solid ground as Mitchell rushed her from behind. Reacting on instinct, she attempted to kick against the nearby desk, but Mitchell, predicting this, tossed her clear over it, slamming her against the wall. She jumped up just in time to meet his boot with her face, and went limp as her head was crushed between said boot and the wall. There was so much blood that by the time Mitchell took his foot away and let the body drop, she splashed with a wet slap into a dark red puddle the floor.

Mitchell wiped the sole of his boot on her Sterritt's, checked the hem of his trousers for blood spatters, and turned back to McKinley. "What's next?"

"Cale played us for fools," McKinley lectured. "He knew we'd risk the story in order to try getting to him, and that we'd be watching the media, trying to control the information flow." Suddenly noticing that the mess flowing from Danaide's eye, nose, and mouth was creeping up on him, he took a step back. "Dropping that story in _New World Weekly'_s lap was an easy way to find out if we had anyone there. All he had to do was watch the kid. Once he'd ID'd you, it wouldn't have been too difficult to go around you, make sure you had no warning of the articles full content.

"We can expect a reaction from Sandeman – no telling what _kind_ of reaction just yet, but this may be our first chance in six years to get to him."

"Rules of engagement?" Mitchell queried.

"Knowing what he did to the Transgenics is paramount, as is finding out if he's been planning any action against us. He has to be taken alive."

"What about the story? It's not just harmless trash anymore. The witch hunts will start pretty soon."

"Then we'll have to present them with a clear target. Start with the magazine editor. Then the reporter. Follow up with their friends, lovers, co-workers, and pets. And make sure you're seen."

"_What?_"

"The throwbacks need a face to slap on this new monster they're being warned about," the Senator pointed out. "So we're going to show them yours. Spread it out; take your time, and be sure your work makes an impression. I want nobody being stupid enough to even _consider_ picking up this story.

"Cale will continue it himself, of course, but I've gotten that team of Korean techies back online again. This time it will be _our_ people who go after him once the signal's traced. No guarantees we'll actually catch him, but if we keep him on his toes, with any luck he won't get a chance to set up shop again."

"Meanwhile, the rest of the media, and the authorities, will be so focused on trying to find me – the only Familiar anybody recognises – they'll forget all about the bigger picture, at least for a short while.

"Hardly a master plan," shrugged McKinley, "but it doesn't need to be. It's very nearly time, anyway. The Conclave simply doesn't want any last minute hitches ruining thousands of years of planning."

* * *

**11:32 a.m.**

Growling furiously when the other line rang out for what must have been at least the twentieth time, Max gave up on trying to get in touch with Logan. At one point, Dix had approached to ask her something, seen the look on her face, and decided it wasn't that important after all. Instead, she tried Sketchy's home phone for the second time, and when she received no answer there, either, dialled Jam Pony.

"Jam Pony courier service," came Normal 's voice, sounding so polite and cheery at thinking he was talking to a potential customer that Max almost cringed.

"It's me," she announced simply, knowing from Cindy that Normal had already been corrected on the rumours of her death. "Is Sketchy there?"

"The star reporter took the day off," he told her sourly. "_Emergency dental appointment _– as if he's ever seen a doctor in his life, except maybe the one who dropped him on his head in the delivery room."

"Original Cindy?"

"Due back from a run twenty minutes ago, so she ought to be here in about an hour." There was a brief pause, and Max knew he was checking to see if anybody could hear him, and was willing to bet he did this so clearly that by now the whole building was trying to listen in. "About the bombing," he whispered loud enough to be heard all the way from Sector Nine without the phone, "I haven't heard anything since the day after. Did Alec come through okay?"

"Like it never happened. I'm fine, too, since you're so worried," she added airily.

"Well, I _guess_ that's a blessing," Normal told her in a 'can't win 'em all' tone. Another pause, then, "Here she comes now."

After a little more sonic-boom whispering, the voice at the end of the line changed. "Original Cindy here."

"It's me. I was trying to get a hold of Sketchy, but I guess he's out celebrating his rise to media stardom."

"Probably dancin' drunk on top of the Space Needle with a big neon bull's-eye flashing over his head," Cindy hissed. "Whose dumb idea was that, anyway?"

"Logan's, I guess. Must have slipped his mind to clue me into the fact that he's using my friends as bait."

"He never told you?" Max could imagine Cindy's face as she considered this, and knew the response before it came. "You know what you gotta do."

"And I'm sure that given recent events it'd be pretty damn therapeutic, but if I so much as lay a finger on him, he'll drop dead."

"So wear gloves, but the boy needs his ass kicked, Boo."

"Maybe. I've been trying to call him, but I'm pretty sure he's avoiding me."

"Or he wants to see you face-to-face. Been a while since you guys saw each other, and weren't you ducking him for a while?"

Max though about that. "Makes sense. He knows I'll want to have words – maybe figures if I can't get him on the phone I'll show up in person." The thought that he'd deliberately avoid speaking to her at a time like this just so he could get a little face time only made her angrier.

"I suppose I don't have much of a choice. I'll be in touch. And if you see Sketchy, tell him to come to the Terminal City house – and to make sure he's not followed. It's not safe for him out there."

Alec was standing behind her when she hung up. "Can I come? I got nothing against Logan, really, but I haven't hit anyone in a while. And it's not like he can't fight back with those mechanical super-legs of his."

"Nobody's getting hit – or at least it's not part of the plan," she amended. "I'm going alone."

Alec decided against arguing. Instead he nodded to Dix, who keyed in something on the number pad of the computer he sat at. Max's phone rang, then stopped before she could answer it. "So we can track you," Alec told her. "We can trace your position to within three feet."

"Thanks."

* * *

**11:45 a.m.**

"We'll have to move things along more quickly," came the response. "Make contact with her again, tell her you need to meet. Make all the necessary arrangements. No collateral damage. If this turns into a bloodbath…"

"It won't," Lydecker promised, "though if she brings a security escort again, odds are it won't exactly be a clandestine operation."

"I understand that. Just don't leave any bodies, and try not to wind up on the evening news. I've had enough media headaches for one day, and the day's not even halfway done." As always, there were no formalities, just a click and a dial tone.

Lydecker was halfway through dialling Cale's number when a sharp tapping on the door announced the leader of the team he'd been supplied. "She's moving, sir. The tracker we placed on her bike shows her exiting Terminal City."

"Perfect timing," Lydecker told him, cancelling the number and putting the phone back in his pocket. "Gear up, Otto, and have the team assembled in three minutes. We just got new marching orders."


	15. Chapter Fourteen

Even though she hadn't taken the same care with her appearance as she had the day she'd met with Lydecker, Max was confident she wouldn't be recognised, the simple act of tucking her hair away combined with a little dull makeup and a flawless fake Sector Pass being enough to get her by without much scrutiny.

Still, when the stumpy little cop she handed the I.D to took his time examining both her and the Sector Pass, she wanted to kick herself for not being more careful as she watched him trying to connect a familiar face with the proper memory.

After a moment, or maybe an hour, the cop shrugged his shoulders and handed the Pass back to her, the tired, annoyed look more common on a man in his position returning as he turned away from her. As Max pulled away, she looked back over her shoulder to be sure, and saw him shaking a little and raising his eyes to the sky, apparently cursing the unusually long winter. Before she rounded the nearest corner, Max saw him reach into the Guardhouse, his hand emerging a second later holding a coffee cup.

_Get your head in the game, soldier!_

The rebuke in her head came in Zack's voice, which she blocked out furiously, forcing all thoughts of where he might be now and what he must be doing from her mind. Despite the circus life had become, one thing Max still allowed herself to believe despite more likely scenarios was that Zack was happy, living oblivious to what he was, and to what others like him were going through.

The command itself remained, and Max's eyes darted to and fro in every direction, scanning all around for anything slightly out of the ordinary. All she saw around her, however, was perfectly ordinary, normal people going about their daily business. People darted in or out of shops; a bunch of kids who had apparently thought better of going to school sat on the bonnet of an old wreck outside a pool hall, thoroughly bored expressions on their faces as they tried to think of something better to do. On the corner outside a coffee shop an old man stood beside an amp, his voice booming around for quite some distance as he spoke authoritatively into the mike in one hand as he held up a bible in the other. What was rare was that instead of the usual fire and brimstone spiel most like him were so fond of, damning everyone around him to the point where almost nobody could pass by without thinking of turning a fire hose on the live amp just to see if it was as funny as the cartoons, this one instead asked what it was that they had all done that had condemned them all to hell. And he answered: nothing. Although Max doubted many would stop to listen throughout the chilly day, it still made a nice change from the 'You're all screwed because you're not me' routine most of the curb-side preachers attacked the populace with.

It was all so ordinary she almost felt compelled to grab the mike from the old man and scream at them all to ask what made them feel they were entitled to such normalcy.

Given the time of day, traffic on the roads was fairly light, and it didn't take long before Max had reached the second of three checkpoints on the way to Sector Four, where Logan was holed up these days. This time the guard barely looked at her or her Sector Pass, simply waving her on impatiently while checking his watch.

It happened a couple of minutes later, as she was turning onto Pike Street. For no reason at all other than the fact that she somehow _knew_ something was wrong, she turned sharply, pulling hard on the breaks as she did so, cutting off a taxi cab as she careered off to the left instead of the right.

The cab driver stopped in the middle of the intersection, screaming at her as he stepped out of the cab. "What the hell is WRONG with y- oh, shit!" Glancing at the side mirrors on her bike, Max saw him dive head first back into the cab in the nick of time. Had he not, he might have been sent flying across the street along with his door when the first of four SUVs rocketed by, too quick to even attempt to swerve, unless they wanted to park upside-down in the lobby of a hotel on the corner.

Weaving around the slightly heavier traffic of the Downtown area, Max made her way downhill towards the Farmer's Market as she summed up the situation best she could. Whoever these guys were, they'd somehow been tracking her from the moment she left Terminal City – or maybe even before. That meant a possible spy within the assembled group of freaks, which didn't seem very likely, or some kind of electronic surveillance. The first thing she thought of was her phone. If somebody had tapped into the computer network in Terminal City, they could be reading the same signal her own people were using to track her movements. She'd have to ditch the phone pretty soon, though hopefully not before she got a chance to call in and let Alec and the others know what was going on.

Her next concern was how they even knew she was alive following the bombing. She'd considered beforehand that any semi-competent Alphabet Soup outfit might have seen through the deception, but this was too overt a move to be a government job. Also, if anyone in the media had even an inkling that she or Alec had survived the attack, it would be all over every network.

Outside of Terminal City – and excluding government-types – the only people who knew the truth were Logan, Original Cindy, Sketchy and his new girlfriend, Herbal, Normal, and Lydecker. It was doubtful the leak had come from Logan or any of her friends, although she supposed it was possible Logan's efforts to re-establish the Eyes Only Informant Net hadn't been as discreet as they could have been, and he'd been spotted. By keeping watch on Logan, the wrong people could have found out quite a lot… but then Sketchy's story never would have seen the light of day, and Logan would have suffered a very public death as a message to everyone who knew him as Eyes Only.

Melissa? She found herself unable to give serious thought to the girl Sketchy had landed being the traitor, despite having only met her once. For all Max knew, she could be the spy of the century, but for some reason her mind told her it couldn't be so – and, inexplicably, she suddenly knew where the blind trust was coming from. Kinship. Sketchy's new girlfriend was a Transgenic.

Realising that whoever this 'Melissa' was, she must have been working with Logan, Max allowed herself another brief flash of anger at this new deception before turning to the last, most obvious suspect. When she'd met him in the coffee shop, he'd kept his distance, knowing how easily he could have had his neck broken by Max, or been shot to pieces by any of those watching the meeting if he made a wrong move. All eyes had been on them the entire time, and after the meeting, two of the Transgenics who had been watching had followed Max for a time to make sure nobody _else_ was following her. She considered the people now on her tail, and wondered what they had been up to when she'd met with Lydecker. If any of them had been close by, they wouldn't have gone unnoticed by Transgenic eyes.

Before she had time to give it much thought, she'd reached the end of the street, and was just outside the old market place. The Farmer's Market might be a decent place to lead these guys on a wild goose chase, she thought, unless they were directly tracking her, which she would soon determine. If they were, it had to be her phone, which could easily be tossed once those in Terminal City had been appraised of the situation.

Deciding this was as good a time as any to get a better measure of her pursuers' intentions, Max once again pulled down on the brakes, and spun a 180. As she screeched to a halt, the lead pursuit vehicle broke just as quickly, and she could make out the driver crying out in anger and alarm as he thought he was about to hit her.

Knowing they wanted her alive gave her an advantage she could definitely press. Being captured alive meant more cages, more labs, and who knows what else, and she decided to show them what she thought of that. Before the SUV had come to a standstill, Max had already leapt from the seat of her bike, caught hold of the rack on top of the vehicle's roof, and crashed through a side window into the back seat. The man in the passenger seat reacted quickly enough to draw a tazer, and was rewarded for his good reaction time with a crushed windpipe. He might still live, if he was lucky, but his companion's neck snapped like a pencil when Max caught him from behind and twisted.

Gunfire erupted from open windows of the other cars as they pulled up alongside, but by the time most of them had even taken aim she was already gone from the back of the car, a streak of black disappearing inside the market grounds.

"What WAS that?!" Gottlieb bellowed as he emerged from the last car. "Orders are to take her alive, not cut her to pieces and scoop what's left into a Ziploc bag!"

"My fault, sir," a tall black woman who looked like she could bench press him responded, stepping forward. "I saw what she did to Ivers and Rake, and I reacted without thinking. The rest just followed my lead."

"Not being able to think for themselves is no excuse," Gottlieb snapped impatiently. "She winds up dead, we're screwed." He turned to the two men in the first car. The one in the passenger seat shook convulsed violently, coughing up blood on the dashboard as he tried and failed to draw breath. The other was facing them, vacant expression gazing stupidly at nothing in particular. He'd died before he even knew he was in trouble. "Call an ambulance," Otto ordered. Turning to the woman who'd spoken before, he added, "Try and get him an airway, and stay with him until you hear sirens, then follow us inside."

* * *

"What's the quickest route to Sector Five?" Alec demanded as soon as he hung up the phone.

Mole and Joshua had already run to gather weapons, and Lin was organising a small group of X-4s, 5s, and a couple of 6s – eight in all, including herself and Alec. Lin objected to Alec's joining the group, as he would be too easily recognised, whereas she and the others had presumably never been spotted by a news camera, but Alec ignored her, and she went back to filling the team in on what little they knew from Max's call.

"We were tracking her by her cell phone signal, but now she's had to ditch it to avoid detection by hostiles," she told them. "We can expect this to make the news pretty soon, since gunfire has already been reported on the scene, and a 911 call for EMS just went through. People will already be guessing it's Manticore-related, and if anybody recognises Max's face, we can expect the full circus.

"Do no engage hostiles unless necessary – they shouldn't recognise us," she cast a quick glance at Alec, "so keep your weapons concealed and avoid a firefight unless absolutely necessary. Until the Police show up to evacuate the civilians, most won't leave even when the guys chasing Max run by waving a bunch of guns around. For the most part they'll just stop and stare. No Police or civilian casualties – if the cops engage, use non-lethal force only. The primary hostiles are assumed to be mercenaries, which means their lives are worth precisely dick, but gunfire in the area is likely to hit all the wrong people."

"We'll be cutting directly through Sector One into Five," Alec interrupted. "There's a heavy response coming from Municipal Police Headquarters in Sector Six, so going that way will be too much trouble. ETA to target zone fifteen minutes.

Since they couldn't exactly hop in a van and drive out the main exit, they were taking motorcycles down the tunnel and out through the house. "If Max is injured, and we need another transport option," Alec told Lin, "that's your baby."

"Got it. You should follow a little distance behind. If we're all at a checkpoint and somebody recognises you…"

"Right," Alec agreed reluctantly.

It was pistols and Micro-SMGs all around, and once all weapons were properly concealed, the team of seven took off down the narrow tunnel in a beeline. Two minutes later, after trying to get hold of Logan again with no result, Alec called over his shoulder to Mole, ordering an update if any major change in status occurred. Dix and Joshua were tuned into the two separate bands for Municipal and Sector Police, and Mole was observing the news channels on the stacked screens as Alec's motorcycle roared down the tunnel and disappeared from sight.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: For anyone who's curious, as a reference for the layout of post-Pulse Seattle, I used a comment made by the mercenary team working with Lydecker in 'Meow', trying to track Max using the residue of the Red Series chip in her neck. "We've covered Sectors One through Eight and everything south of Seneca." Using this as a reference point, I searched out Seneca Street on a map of Seattle, and divided the area to the north into the various Sectors - Sector One being central, with the others spaced around it. This may be innaccurate according to some cannon I'm unfamiliar with, but I'm sticking with it.**


	16. Chapter Fifteen

The five remaining members of the team entered the marketplace as a single unit, leaving the sixth to wait for the ambulance for her injured team-mate. As they began moving quickly in the direction Otto assumed Max had dashed off in, a voice came over the radio from the woman they'd left behind. "She has a radio, and two tazers. Didn't take any of the other weapons. Switch to alternate frequency."

Otto tapped his mike twice in acknowledgement, twisted the dial on the radio at his belt, then punched in a six digit code. As agreed beforehand, the radios were for emergency use only. Otherwise, silence was the order of the day. A few quick signals to the rest of his team, and all rifles were slung. While one drew a tazer, two others instead produced heavily customized M9 Berettas, quickly attaching silencers to the end of each. The hulk at the back of the formation kept his M3 12-gauge, and Gottlieb swapped out his own rifle for a shorter but heavier SPAS-12, the folding stock weighted for balance.

The soft-soled boots worn by the attack squad, combined with their apparently quite adequate training, made absolutely no difference at all in pursuit of their quarry. Even though they moved silently enough that even Max doubted she could have picked them out of dead silence, there was no remedy to the surprised and frightened yelps and squeals from onlookers as they passed, weapons held firm and steady, moving in synch with their eyes. The crowd parted like long grass around them, the occasional parent dragging a child behind them as if to shield them.

When a young man using a single crutch didn't move quickly enough for their liking, one of the team shoved him roughly back, and he winced in pain as he lost his footing, dropping the crutch and falling back against the doorframe of a shop.

A boy of about three, scooped quickly into his mother's arms when she saw them coming and hopped aside, reached out towards the man at the back of the formation, his little hand clutching at the shiny black barrel of the shotgun he held. Without so much as glancing in the child's direction, the gunman swatted his hand away sharply. Another team member shot him a withering look when the boy started to wail loudly, but the larger man simply shrugged and continued on.

* * *

The rest of the detachment from Terminal City had already disappeared past the first checkpoint when Alec approached. Common sense should have kept him inside the perimeter fence to begin with, but the moment the call had come through, common sense had gone out the window, in the two seconds it took him to decide that with all he owed Max, he couldn't sit on his ass watching it all on the news.

What he never mentioned to Lin or anyone else was the possible upside to his going – his face was almost as well-known as Max's these days, and if the cops got involved in the chase, he might be able to draw their attention, allowing Max and the others to deal with the more pressing problem of the people who kick-started this mess in the first place.

The cop waved him on and walked, but barely a second after he'd passed under the barrier, Alec heard a cry of shock from one of the other guards on post. A second later a burst of gunfire erupted from behind him, and Alec lost control of the bike as the back tire blew out. As it skidded out from under him, Alec tumbled head over heels on the road, then quickly vaulted to his feet and hopped aside as a lot more bullets came rocketing towards him. He made for a nearby alleyway between two small shops, bolting by at top speed, furious at his being discovered so soon, but absently regarding with respect the skill of the first cop who had fired, not to mention the fact that he'd gone for the bikes tire as opposed to the rider.

A minute later, four cops rushing and huffing down the alley never noticed Alec crouched down behind a dumpster, and were long gone in pursuit of shadows when he left. Jumping onto a nearby fire escape, he climbed to the roof of the building, found it not tall enough for his purpose, and turned to another nearby. The gap was eight feet wide, the other roof ten feet higher than the one he stood on.

Taking a couple of steps back, he then ran to the roofs edge, and leapt as hard and high as he could manage at the other building. Below him lay a sea of concrete and broken bottles; not the softest of landings.

His right hand caught the edge of the other roof for a fraction of a second before slipping, replaced just in time by his left, fingers slick on the wet stone. Hefting himself up, he managed to secure a grip with both hands and crawl over the top. Once on his feet, he peeked over the edge once again. Seventy-foot fall onto a bed of shattered glass: Transgenic or not, that wouldn't have been a very fun trip.

From this higher perch his view was unobstructed; everything was downhill into Sector Five, where he could see the Farmers Market stretching out along the marina.

The Market and Max were less than four miles away, but that was four miles and one sector checkpoint too far with every cop in Seattle probably going on high alert as he stood there. He'd be of no use to Max now, but at least his fallback might work out – the cops would be looking for _him_, not Max, which meant that once whoever was after her in the marketplace was dealt with, she should be able to sneak back to Terminal City without incident.

* * *

The team split to cover the separate levels, Gottlieb leading one of his companions underground while the other shotgun-armed team member took command of the remaining two, combing along the ground level.

The crowd continued to part before them, a few people muttering to each other in conspiratorial tones. None of the mercenaries paid them much mind, though the word Transgenic was easily picked out. Fortunately, it seemed that everyone was under the impression they were cops of some sort, and nobody seemed to be in any hurry to dial a phone – the last thing they needed was to get involved in a standoff.

All three turned at the sound of a crash immediately behind them, and were all staring daggers at a man who'd dropped a crate of fish, spilling flounder and ice all over the ground, when the tazer struck the massive team leader in the back.

His agonized, furious roar was lost as the shotgun clattered to the ground, discharging as a result of the impact, and the small, dark blur that had last been seen disappearing into the market entrance struck him hard from behind as the electric shock passed.

As the leader fell face-first through a stall of assorted seafood, the remaining team members reacted with a speed that almost caught Max off-guard; still human, but definitely the peak of human efficiency. She barely dodged the tazer fire directed at her, rushing up to the man holding the weapon and catching him under the chin with an uppercut while a tranquilizer round from the last merc breezed by her neck as she did so.

Hopping over the tazer-wielding operative, she vaulted forward and kicked out with both feet, knocking the woman with the M9-T flat on her back. Winning full points for effort, the winded woman leapt up almost as quickly as Max herself, only a tiny bit slower for being breathless. As Max ducked under a sharp jab, the other woman's knee rose to catch her in the chest. Just stopping herself in time to avoid a cracked rib or two, Max caught the other woman by her raised leg, flipping her over and slamming her hard into the ground. The pistol was dropped and skidded away, and on the off-chance that the last merc was stupid enough to try getting up yet again, a straight punch from Max bashed her head against the cement, instantly rendering her unconscious.

The team leader was scrambling unsteadily to his feet, but as Max drew the second tazer, a shot from behind caught her in the shoulder, and she dropped the weapon as pain coarsed through her now useless arm, the rubber bullet resulting in her second dislocated shoulder in as many weeks.

Biting off an involuntary cry of shock and pain, Max spun to face the shooter, and froze at seeing Gottlieb holding the shotgun.

"What the…" She was cut off by a second shot directly to the chest, her shocked query replaced by an odd mix of the howl of a tortured animal and the breathless wheezing of someone kicked hard in the gut.

Suddenly, she noticed the pain of the once again dislocated shoulder and the undoubtedly cracked ribs beginning to dull, along with everything else. She tried to force herself off the ground, but couldn't. Gottlieb was down one knee beside her, effortlessly holding her down with the other knee.

Before she lost consciousness, Max became dimly aware of the tranquilizer dart that must have been fired immediately after the second rubber bullet from Gottlieb's shotgun, sticking out of her left thigh.

When Lin and the others arrived only moments later outside the marketplace, one man was being loaded into an ambulance, a tube shoved down his throat, one paramedic squeezing gently on the bag as they moved him. The first Police car had arrived and was guarding the vehicle containing the corpse of the other man.

Max and the rest of the mercenaries were nowhere to be found.

* * *

She awoke in total darkness, with what felt like a head-to-toe toothache. Her shoulder, which apparently had been set once again, throbbed dully, and the fire in her chest reminded her of the cracked ribs. Everything seemed distant somehow, from the pain to the darkness surrounding her. It was as if she were trapped in a void, her mind somehow separate from her body. The night-vision Manticore had provided by way of the nanites in her blood worked just like NVGs; my magnifying existing light up to five hundred times. No use in the total darkness surrounding her now.

Reaching out in front of her, her hand hit something solid only inches from her body. Strangely, what she found was some sort of fabric. To her right, the same. When she attempted to move her left arm she stopped at feeling the sting. Something was jabbing her in the arm.

Her right arm reached across to her left, groping at the source – an IV line.

_What?_

Numb fingers tried to grip the line and yank it out, but her hand simply wouldn't respond the way she wanted it to. Time and time again she tried, but she couldn't get hold of the line no matter what she tried.

* * *

In the control tower, another controller turned to the woman who'd been speaking to the pilot. "These guys weren't on today's manifest. What's their rush?"

"They got a corpse in cargo. Girl died in Portland last week – run over. Funeral's tomorrow in Quebec. Somebody had some pull, I guess. They got emergency clearance."

"Why the hell did they wait till now to ship her?"

"They didn't. She was supposed to go out last night, but whatever jackass was in charge of transport brought her to Seatac instead of here. They lost their place in the queue, and I suppose someone in the family knew who to talk to get her on our ticket."

Turning back to her screen, her hand unnecessarily pulling the mike on her headset slightly closer to her mouth, she spoke once again to the aircraft pilot. "LV 426, this is tower, you are clear for takeoff on Runway Two," the air traffic controller announced over the radio.

"Copy, tower, this is LV 426 approaching Runway Two for takeoff," Gottlieb responded.

The door to the cockpit opened up behind him, and Sparks, quite possibly the largest human being Otto had ever encountered, walked cautiously inside, looking around as if to make sure there was nothing nearby that he might accidently bump into and shatter beyond all repair.

"Vitals are changing. She's starting to come around."

"Up the dosage."

"Are you sure? She's already way past safe levels."

"_Normal_ safe levels," Gottlieb pointed out. "She could probably take triple what she's getting now. Just make sure she stays asleep."

* * *

**END OF PART ONE**

**A Note to Readers - 22/12/2007  
**

Thanks to all who have followed this story so far, especially to those who began reading in the beginning only to have the story disappear, then return so much later with an different beginning. I'm glad you've all stuck it out to this point, and hope you will continue reading when the final part of the story begins.

I would also like to thank all my reviewers, whose support for this story has been better than anything I expected.

Finally, ReganX, who has been great for bouncing ideas off of, and was always happy to read over my work and refine my plans, and who, thankfully, never had to hit me over the head for getting lazy again.

At the moment I'm working on the layout and early chapters of Part Two for this story, _The Storm_. Once the first couple of chapters are ready to roll out - hopefully no later than February - I'll begin posting. Anyone hoping to see more of Lydecker, Zack, and everyone's best buddy Ames won't be disappointed. All motives will be revealed, all questions answered, and the Freak Nation goes head-to-head with the Familiars to screw up their plans for an apocolypse.

When the first entry in _The Storm _goes up, I'll post here once more to let everyone know. Anyone who doesn't have this story on Alert, but who wrote any signed reviews, I'll send a message to your account.

Hoping to see you all again soon,

Padraig Fagan


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